Loreauville’s Caitlin Migues (1) steals second as 

LOREAUVILLE — Before the 2020 softball season began, Loreauville head softball coach Jude Dugas had a few questions about his team.

The LHS coach was concerned about a few things, but one of the primary concerns was could his defense step up and play.

Dugas really didn’t want to have to rely on his offense to win shootout-type games.

For the most part, Loreauville’s pitching and defense has come through as the Lady Tigers were 7-7 with two wins and a close loss to Lafayette Christian  in the Delcambre Tournament when the prep season came to a half on March 16 from the statewide closing of schools as the government tries to stop the effects of coronavirus on the state.

“When it screeched to a half, we were just starting to find our groove,” Dugas said. “We had a pretty tough schedule early on that prepared us to be battle-tested later on in the season.

“By the time we got into March, we were figuring it out and we were playing a whole lot better than we were early in the year.

“We made some changes here and there. We threw all three of our pitchers and they were doing a great job and we were just starting to hit our stride when it got shut down.”

After opening the season with two wins, Loreauville went through a stretch of five losses in six games, but then turned it around and had four wins in six games.

Included in that stretch were wins over Class 3A power Iota and a Delcambre team that had opened the season on a hot streak.

“We knew that first stretch of games was going to be brutal,” Dugas said. “We started with Mamou, who was the (Class) 3A semifinalist, then the next morning we came back and played Beau Chene, who was the (Class) 4A semifinalist.

“Then we had North Vermilion that night, who was the two seed last year in 3A but moved up to 4A this year and then we had Notre Dame the Tuesday, which has won 46 of its last 48 games. We knew that was a brutal stretch but we knew that we were going to be better for it for having gone through it.”

Even with that stretch of hard games, Dugas knew that his Lady Tigers were going to be a good team and get better as the season progressed.

“In that Notre Dame game, if we don’t implode in the fourth inning, we beat them,” Dugas said. “They only earned six runs and we earned all nine of ours.

“We end up giving them seven runs on six errors. That was at the that stretch of games because we were playing better coming out of it.”

When the season was stopped, Loreauville’s good streak was going to be tested. After the Delcambre Tournament, LHS had games against Catholic High and Franklin and then were headed to the Sulphur Tournament and games against Class 5A Destrehan and a pair of perennial playoff contenders, Class A Merryville and Class 2A Rosepine.

Dugas said he was really looking forward to the game with Rosepine since LHS fell to them 7-4 in the Acadiana High Tournament just a week earlier.

As for the 2020 version of the Lady Tigers, Dugas said that there were some games where the defense struggled, giving credence to one of the things he was worried about before the season began.

“We had some defensive struggles in games.” the LHS coach said. “I guess you can chalk it up to the fact that we had to figure some things out.

“We did lose four defensive starters from the 2019 team. Even though we had a whole bunch coming back, we still lost those starters and you have to fill those positions.

“With a new nine players out there, you have to go through some growing pains and figure things out and we were doing that.”

Dugas said that even with the losses that the Lady Tigers had, Loreauville was very competitive in how they played in those games.

Loreauville was robbed of a home run at the fence in one game, were tied in the seventh inning in a couple of others and had a few bad calls go against them in a couple of other games.

If those had gone Loreauville’s way, the Lady Tigers might have 11 or 12 wins at this point instead of seven wins.

“That’s something that you can’t really control. I mean that how softball goes sometimes,” Dugas said. “We really liked where we left off. We knew where we were going and we were playing that way.”

Some of the players Dugas were counting on when the season stopped were Grace Boggs, who Dugas said was hitting from the leadoff spot; Hannah Towers, who was batting .400 while Kate Landry and four home runs and Madi Freyou, who had two homers.

“Then we started up again with our slapper, Paige McHugh, our little slapper, who started things back up again,” Dugas said. “The top half and the middle of the lineup were driving everything.”

The biggest question of all right now is whether or not Dugas and Loreauville will get a chance to pick up and finish the season.

“Looking at what the LHSAA says, they have no intention of cancelling things,” Dugas said. “Mr. Bonine (LHSAA head Eddie Bonine) has said that he wants to finish everything out. 

“But I think right now we all at the mercy of federal and local government. If and when everything calms down, it seems like they want to finish it.

“We got an email saying that there was a plan in place to finish. They didn’t say what the plans were, there was just a plan to start up again and finish.

“As a team, we can’t wait to get back out there and finish the season.”