The New Iberia Senior High baseball stunned fans with a 14-1 loss in the season opener against Iowa on Monday.

The Yellow Jacket started the game strong, picking up one run in the first inning and holding Iowa to 0 until the third. Runs in the third and fifth innings were cause for concern, but a blowout sixth inning saw Iowa add 12 runs against a NISH team that seemed unable to do anything to stop it.

“We were playing a really good game up to that point, Luke Landry had pitched a really good game,” said NISH coach Eli Lewellyn. “Around the fourth inning we had a turning point issue with one of our seniors and after that, going into the fifth and sixth, it affected our team in a negative way and we just kind of rolled over and quit.”

Mental errors abounded in the sixth inning from the Yellow Jackets, with players missing key throws and catches that allowed Iowa to capitalize and pick up a big lead. Lewellyn said that his team’s performance is disappointing because it doesn’t represent who his team really is.

“The most disappointing thing for me is that we’re better than that,” he said. “We’re not a team that’s a group of quitters, as a group we do have some fight. Tonight, we didn’t show it, and it’s disappointing.”

A major issue the Yellow Jackets faced was a steep drop off in performance on the pitching mound once starting pitcher Luke Landry was pulled out of the game. Numerous pitchers were brought in to end the sixth inning, but it wasn’t until Kolbe Louiviere finally got the third out that a dejected NISH team could return to the dugout.

“I think that it was just a tonight thing,” said Lewellyn. “The people we brought in after Luke are guys that I believe in. I think one of them just wasn’t mentally ready for the moment tonight and we just didn’t get the job done defensively right behind them.”

“We brought in a freshman, Mason Meyers, and he got three ground balls and we couldn’t make a play on three of them. It was really just a spiral out of control in one inning that ended up defeating us tonight.”

NISH’s roster this season includes seven seniors, but despite a strong senior corps, the Yellow Jackets have struggled with their mental resilience so far this season. Lewellyn said that he believes that his team just needs a bit more experience, but that he knows that the performances will improve.

“I think some guys are struggling with their inexperience this year. When things are good, we play really well, but the thing about last year’s group (of seniors) is that when things got tough, they knew to buckle down and they never gave up. They had some toughness about them.”

“That’s something that this year’s group is going to have to learn and get some experience with. Being able to bounce back when something doesn’t go your way, being able to bounce back when an umpire doesn’t make a call your direction, those are little things that I believe will come with time but we have a lot of work to do to get better.”

The Yellow Jackets returned to action on Tuesday, traveling to Catholic High School – Baton Rouge, for their first away game of the season.