High School Softball Previews: Barbe Lady Bucs

Lake Charles, LA (KPLC) - 2023 is the beginning of the Grant Anderson era at Barbe High School, as Coach Anderson will look to continue the winning culture that was instilled by Coach Candyce Carter who helped the Lady Bucs to the 2021 State Championship, and to an impressive 24-7 record.

Coach Carter’s coaching run included a perfect 6-0 record in district play last year in her final season as head coach of the Lady Bucs.

Now, Coach Anderson will look to continue that impressive run Coach Carter had, but it will be an uphill battle early due to the fact that Barbe has just one senior for the 2023 season.

“Yeah, our lone senior Skylar Lacomb was the only player that has a state championship ring. The only player that kind of has that pedigree so she stepped in, and it’s probably been a little bit of a tougher job for her than the seniors of the past because there were five and six at a time, but she’s the only one left. But she’s done a great job of of leading vocally and with her actions too,” Coach Anderson said. “You get to teach some of the younger girls that don’t have a clue what they’re doing and it’s very exciting for them to learn new things and then look up to you and be like, oh, wow, I didn’t know that, it’s pretty awesome. We’re learning and that we’re going to get there, we might not get there right away, but we’re going to get there eventually and that this team is going to go very far once they learn everything they need to know.”

Like Lacomb said, this year is going to be a bit different, while the Lady Bucs are coming off of an impressive 24-7 overall record, and a 6-0 district record last year.

Their 2023 squad is quite different as they don’t have the same experience as previous Barbe teams that have been so successful.

“This year is going to be a little bit different, we have only two kids that have some experience at this level, we’re going to be playing a lot of young kids, a lot of freshmen, so it’s going to be a little bit of a learning curve,” Coach Anderson said. “We just want to get back to being the dominant school in the area, and attract the kids that that want to play softball, have high character, do it the right way, and just be really, really competitive in everything we do.”

The Lady Bucs are back-to-back 5A District 3 champions, and will look to defend their crown this season when their season gets started on Feb. 14, at home against Westlake.

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