After a competitive weekend of games that saw each of the three participating teams go 1-1 in the round-robin New Iberia Senior High baseball tournament, things don’t get any easier for any of the three city squads.

NISH jumped out to a 7-0 lead over Catholic High and held on for a 9-5 win in the final game Saturday under threatening clouds that never burst loose. Westgate had beaten New Iberia 8-5 in the opener Thursday, and CHS beat Westgate 10-1 Friday night. All games were played at NISH.

For each team, the challenges continue this week. Catholic High takes on Class 5A Live Oak (12-5) Tuesday in Lafayette. Westgate travels to St. Thomas More (11-5) to open District 4-4A play Tuesday. NISH, which saw an 11-game win streak snapped at the hands of unbeaten District 3-5A rival Sam Houston last week, resumes district play Tuesday at Acadiana (14-5).

“Well, it doesn’t get any easier for us,” CHS coach David Jordan said. “We’ve got to play Live Oak Tuesday at UL, and they’re pretty good. They’re not pretty good, they’re real good.”

“It doesn’t get any easier the rest of the year,” NISH coach Robby Norris said. “Welcome to our district. We’ve got Acadiana Tuesday and Comeaux Thursday, Barbe Saturday. I’m glad we started off good because every win in district is going to be tough, because our district is probably the best in the state, hands down. We’ve put ourselves in a good position so we’ve just got to continue to compete and hopefully get some wins in district.”

In Saturday’s tournament finale, Yellow Jackets starting pitcher Caleb Seroski struck out the side in the top of the first inning, and NISH got three runs in the bottom of the second with Trace Conley’s RBI double the big hit of the frame.

Brock Boudreaux’s RBI single following a Beau Hebert base hit added a run in the second inning and the Jackets tacked on three more in the fourth on Max Borel’s double, a run-scoring single by Tyrese Morgan and Boudreaux’s two-run base hit.

“We start the game with three strikeouts, and then we hold them on defense, and then we give up three, and we’re behind already,” Jordan said. “So what was supposed to be a big game is now silence in the dugout, everyone looking around, ‘Where’s the easy button, coach, where’s the easy button?’ and I didn’t push the easy button.” 

The Panthers made some noise of their own in the fifth inning, finally touching Seroski for five runs on a double by Avery Guidry that hugged the left-field line, a hit batter, an RBI single by Broc Romero, an RBI hit by Kade Gonsoulin and a two-run hit by Spencer Broussard.

“I’d like to think that lineup that we had could produce more than just runs in one inning,” Jordan said, adding he’s looking for consistency. “That’s what a good lineup can do, they can produce runs in more than one inning.

“Maybe it’s time to shake it up a little bit, let some young guys get out there, see what they can do. I can’t sit back on my duff and watch it happen, because we’ve got some good players, but it didn’t look like it today, not at the plate, not at all.”

That brought CHS to within 7-5, but New Iberia answered with two runs in the bottom of the inning for the final margin, with Borel and Morgan singling to set up Brant Leslie’s two-RBI double that hit two-thirds of the way up the center field fence.

“That’s baseball,” Norris said. “You never know when you step on the field what you’re going to get, from your opponent or from your own team. You’ve got to try to find a way to compete every single game and stay focused every pitch. I thought we did a better job of that today. We answered back after we had a bad inning. It’s high school baseball. You show up, get ready to play and hopefully the kids respond.”

Seroski went 4 2/3 innings for the win, allowing five runs on eight hits with two walks and five strikeouts. Seth Lopez allowed one hit in 1 1/3 innings and Hebert allowed one hit and struck out one in an inning.

“(Seroski) was on fire,” Norris said. “He spotted up three pitches, he kept them off balance, he made great pitches early in the game.”

Norris said he thinks Seroski cooled off during a couple of the big innings and added he should have had his starter throwing during those big offensive innings from the Yellow Jackets.

Gonsoulin took the loss after allowing four runs, three earned, on two hits with three walks and four strikeouts. Guidry pitched 2 2/3 innings and allowed five runs, only two earned, on six hits with three walks and three strikeouts. Nick Borne finished, allowing no hits in an inning.

Boudreaux went 2-for-3 with a double and three RBIs, Morgan went 2-for-3 with an RBI and two runs and Leslie went 1-for-3 with a double and two RBIs to pace NISH at the plate. Borel went 1-for-3 with two runs scored, Conley was 1-for-4 with a double, an RBI and a run and Austin Norris and Cody Khammany each scored a run.

“We had some quality at-bats and we had some timely hitting, which we hadn’t been getting in the last two games,” Norris said. “During our win streak we were having some good at-bats as well. I’m not asking them to hit one off the wall, I want quality at-bats — get the bunt down when we need to. We executed a good hit-and-run today, so we did the little things. And then certain guys came up with some big hits with two outs and runners in scoring position, so when you can do all those things and pitch and play defense, you’ve got a shot.”

For CHS, Romero had two hits and an RBI, Hunter Dugas went 2-for-4 with a run, Dylan LeBlanc went 2-for-3 with an RBI, Spencer Broussard had a hit and two RBIs and Guidry doubled and scored a run. 

Gonsoulin had an RBI and a run, Cole Lipari and Jacob Poe each had a base hit and Kyle Evans and Andrew Thompson scored runs.