Cajun Sting tops Blue Stream in finals

PLAQUEMINE -- Left out of the Junior American Legion State Tournament just over a month ago by a second-place finish in district, the Cajun Sting made the most of a second chance by coming back from a two run deficit to beat cross-town rival Blue Stream Services 3-2 Monday in the finals of the state tournament held at Plaquemine High School.

Bryce Sibille scored the winning run from second base with one out in the bottom of the seventh inning on Thomas Smith’s fielder’s choice as Cajun Sting completed its comeback and claimed the state championship.

It was the second straight state Junior Legion title for the Sting, who beat Dutchtown 7-5 in the title game last year at Acadian Park.

“I don’t know where to start with these kids,” said a soaking wet Cajun Sting coach Bert Miguez after having the water cooler dumped on him following the game. “We kind of struggled all year. Towards the end, we kind of started hitting a little bit then we’d fall back in some ruts and make some bone-headed plays on defense and then not hit.

“But the one thing that was always in the back of my mind was that we stepped out and played tougher teams, senior Legion teams. These kids came out to play. That was the most frustrating thing, when we stepped down and played teams, we lay an egg. But I knew that coming out here and playing better teams that we’d make some noise.”

And the Cajun Sting made the noise in the seventh inning, a wild, wacky inning that summed up their season �” make mistakes but find a way to win.

Playing as the home team, the New Iberia Senior High-based team came to bat with the score tied 2-2 and extra innings looming.

Sibille led off the inning with a single to right.

Then the wildness started.

Cody Boutte followed with a bunt and Sibille advanced to third, but the home plate umpire called Boutte out for interference after the pitcher picked up the batted ball and threw to first, hitting Boutte on the arm.

The home plate umpire ruled Boutte ran inside the running lane to first, thus interfering with the throw. Sibille was sent back to first base because a runner cannot advance on an interference call.

With one out, Shawn Olivier drew a walk to put runners on first and second. Smith, who was named MVP of the tournament, came up to bat and hit a ball to second base.

Blue Stream’s Kyle Clement picked up the ball, got the force out at second then threw to first trying to complete the double play but Smith beat the throw. Sibille, seeing the confusion with the call and the throw, rounded third and sped home with the winning run before anybody knew what happened.

“On the bunt at first (Olivier’s out) I was thinking about the dog pile already,” said Sibille. “When I had to go back to first, I was really upset. I thought that something bad was going to happen.

“When the ground ball came, I rounded third and I saw the first baseman toss the ball and I took off. I don’t know what was going through my mind after that. I was going to touch third and check to see what was going on, but I didn’t expect that at all. I knew after that we’d be state champions, nobody was going to catch me.”

“I didn’t know that Smith could run that fast,” said Miguez. “He hadn’t run that fast all year and I was thinking that it was a double play after the second baseman touched the bag. But I looked up and saw that Smith had almost reached first base and I was thinking, ‘Where did that come from?’”

It was elation for Cajun Sting, but bitter disappointment for Catholic High-based Blue Stream, which beat the Cajun Sting four times this year but lost the two games at the state tournament.

“I just don’t like to lose those types of ballgames,” said Blue Stream coach Steve Miller. “But it is what it is. You have to be smarter than that and you can’t assume anything in baseball.

“But we didn’t take advantage of the miscues that Cajun Sting made early in the ball game and that was our demise.”

After beating the Lake Charles Jaxx 4-3 in the first game to make it to the final, Blue Stream came out against Cajun Sting and scored two runs in the first, and had a runner on third with one out, but couldn’t get any more runs.

“We left too many runners on base,” said Miller. “Cajun Sting is too good a team to give that many chances too.”

Cajun Sting started the rally with a run in the third as Sibille reached on an infield hit, stole second and scored on Olivier’s RBI-single to right. Two innings later, Cajun Sting tied the game as Boutte scored on a bases-loaded walk, but the inning ended a batter later as Trent Broussard batted ball to the left side hit Smith as he was breaking off the bag on the contact.

“We weren’t concerned after being down 2-0,” said Sibille. “We did it all week. We won three games like that. We just kept fighting back.”

Blue Stream 3, Lake Charles 2

Miles St. Upery had three hits, Jacob Rogers had two hits and scored a run and Thomas Theriot had a hit and scored a run as Blue Stream advanced to the title game with a win over Lake Charles Monday afternoon.

Shea Simmons picked up the win.

He allowed one unearned run and one hit over three innings.

Zack Leblanc pitched three innings in relief of Simmons and gave up one run on two hits for the save.