The New Iberia Senior High School baseball team picked up a big win over crosstown rival Catholic High on Wednesday night, with NISH pitchers throwing a combined no-hitter in the last preseason game for the Yellow Jackets.

Senior Luke Landry, finally back to full health after a long rehabilitation process for a shoulder injury, started at pitcher for the Yellow Jackets.

“I felt really good,” Landry said. “This fall, I had a major setback with an injury and I was out for about five months, but as soon as I got back (to full health) I just got right back to it. I never lost that feeling, I want to be out here with these amazing players and teammates that I have and with our amazing coaching staff. I did it for them.”

Landry added that, despite struggling in a few scrimmages, the team is settling down and fine tuning their mental game.

“I think that this is an amazing start. Coming into this game, we had dropped a few scrimmages due to mental errors, but before the game we were in the locker room and got locked in and I think the score speaks for itself.”

NISH head coach Eli Lewellyn said he was happy with his team’s performance against Catholic High, especially because of the previous performances in preseason.

“I was happy with our performance tonight,” Lewelllyn said. “We had a really bad approach at the plate against Carencro. We struck out a lot, didn’t put a lot of balls into play, so my challenge to the team after the Carencro scrimmage was to have a better approach at the plate, to have longer at-bats, and do a better job at extending the inning with two outs.

“As a group, as a team, we were really able to accomplish that goal tonight. Overall, it was a good job with the offense tonight of accepting the challenge.”

The Yellow Jackets scored early, adding one run in the first inning and two in the second inning. The fifth inning saw NISH extend the lead to 8-0 after big performances by Derron Degeyter and Luke Landry. Many NISH players were able to get on base due to errors from Catholic High, something that Lewellyn said was always going to lead to a big inning from his team.

“I preach to the team all the time that what manufactures a big inning is whenever an error happens, in that moment, especially with two outs, you need someone to step up and get a big hit,” explained Lewellyn.

“Hats off to our seniors, Derron Degeyter and then Luke Landry right after him, two huge hits by both of them to create that big inning. Whenever other teams give you opportunities, you have to do your part to take advantage and capitalize.”

“Seeing our approach at the plate, I knew it was a matter of time because we were picking out what pitches we wanted and doing a good job of getting on base, either by walks or getting hit by pitches.”

“I saw early on in the game, we had five walks or hit-by-pitches that first time through the lineup. That was telling me that at some point we were going to break it open and have a big inning if that trend continued. It was just a matter of time before we got that big hit and our seniors stepped up and made that happen.”

Derron Degeyter ended the game with one run and two RBIs from three at-bats. Luke Landry had one run and three RBIs, including a three-run home run. Landry pitched four innings for the Yellow Jackets, allowing no hits and striking out five.

The Yellow Jackets will begin the regular season on Monday with a home contest against Iowa. The game will begin at 6:30 p.m.