St. Louis Baseball Semi-Final Preview

Lake Charles, LA (KPLC) - After winning the State Championship in 2021, which they had to beat Vandebilt Catholic in the Semi-Finals in order to accomplish, the St. Louis Catholic Saints fell to that same Vandebilt Catholic team in 2022, and now in 2023, as the one seed in the Select Division II bracket, St. Louis will have to play Vandebilt Catholic in the Semi-Finals for the third consecutive year.

“Every year that we’ve played them (Vandebilt Catholic), this is now the third year in a row that we’ve met them in the semis, and we’re 1-1 so, I’m looking forward to it,” said Saints head coach Matt Fontenot. “I feel like last year we faced a really good guy on the mound in Owen Schexnaydre, and they’re going to throw another good guy this year, but we’ve just got to respect the game of baseball, play it the right way, and play it to the best of our ability and as we said, it’s a one-game win or go home so we’ll turn on the scoreboard and see what happens.”

For St. Louis, they’ve gone up against quality competition this season considering three other District 3-3A teams, South Beauregard, Kinder, and Iowa, are all in Sulphur for the Semi-Finals, and coach Fontenot says that’s part of the reason the Saints have been able to be successful in the playoffs this year.

“Four teams from our district in 3-3A, we’re all in a group chat and you know, we’re proud of each other, we think we have one of the better districts in the state at our level of 3A and, we’ve all played tough games, and close games with them all year. When you look at our schedule, of the 25 games that we played against in-state teams, 16 of those games, those opponents are in Sulphur this week so, you’ve got to have confidence in that, that you’ve been battle-tested, you’ve been there, you’ve had to win games against good opponents, and hope that it’ll pay off in the end.”

To get to this point the Saints received a Bi-District round bye as the one seed, beat David Thibodaux 18-1 in five innings, and 16-0 in five innings in the Regional Round, and then Archbishop Shaw 2-0, and 8-4 in the Quarterfinals.

St. Louis will take on fifth-seeded Vandebilt Catholic on Wednesday, May 10th, at 5:00 on McMurry Park’s Field 40.

For the full interview with St. Louis head coach Matt Fontenot, click here.

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