Opening day ceremony, first varsity game set for Feb. 14 at new BHS Softball Stadium

By News Staff on Thursday, February 2, 2023
  • Lady Bearcat softball team members (from left to right) Breanna Fields, Daisy Berzas, Hannah Aguillard, Henley LeJeune, Addilyn David, Hanna Manuel, and Kynlee Fruge are shown putting the ceremonial shovels to use at the ground-breaking of the team’s field in November of 2021. The newly-created team had their debut game February 3, 2022 as a junior varsity team. Their first varsity season will begin Feb. 14, 2023, in their first game in the new stadium, which was completed recently.
    Lady Bearcat softball team members (from left to right) Breanna Fields, Daisy Berzas, Hannah Aguillard, Henley LeJeune, Addilyn David, Hanna Manuel, and Kynlee Fruge are shown putting the ceremonial shovels to use at the ground-breaking of the team’s field in November of 2021. The newly-created team had their debut game February 3, 2022 as a junior varsity team. Their first varsity season will begin Feb. 14, 2023, in their first game in the new stadium, which was completed recently.
    By: DARREL LEJEUNE LSN Editor Basile High School is proud to announce that opening day ceremonies for the Lady Bearcat varsity softball team will be held on Tuesday, February 14, at the new softball complex located behind W. W. Stewart Elementary School, just off Belton Street. The 3 p.m. ceremony will begin with a tour of the new facility and recognition of business sponsors and school officials. The Lady Bearcat softball team will be introduced and the blessing of the field will be conducted by Father Keenan Brown of St. Augustine Catholic Church with prayer led by Pastor Mike Fontenot of First Baptist Church of Basile. Abigail Roy, a BHS TAG student, will sing “The National Anthem”. The season’s first game is set to begin following the ceremony with first pitch set for 4 p.m. against the Lacassine Lady Cardinals. Admission to softball games is $7 and game time for all home games is presently set for 4 p.m. until lights are installed at the stadium. Basile High fielded a junior varsity squad last season after starting practices back in the spring of 2021. The 2023 season marks Basile’s first varsity softball season since 1967 when a team coached by Carmen Miller competed at the Evangeline Parish Rally in the final year of those athletic meets. A Basile High girls’ softball teams participated at the annual Parish Rally at the elementary and high school level when team sports were added to the contests of the day in 1937. BHS Principal Leroy Soileau, a former coach himself, promoted the addition of team sports to the rally in 1937 when the school hosted the event. Prior to that year, the rally was mostly a day of literary contests along with a few boys’ track and field events. The Basile girls’ softball teams always competed well at the parish rally and, according to newspaper reports, last fielded a team at the district level at McNeese in 1963, an event that would qualify its top teams for the state softball tournament. In the prior year, 1962, the Bearkettes (as the BHS girls’ teams were called then) won the district tourney and thus advanced to the state event where they skunked Baker, 13-0, with the game being called at the end of the third inning due to the high score. Plainview then eliminated the BHS girls in the second round, 7-3. Miller also coached those early 1960’s squads. Nick Chaumont, local school board member, spearheaded the efforts to offer a new girls’ sport by meeting with BHS parents and girls to gauge their interests back in 2020 after Rebecca Berzas, a local parent, took action to have the school create a new girls’ team to align with Title IX requirements as mandated since the 1970s. A survey of possible sports of interest resulted in an overwhelming positive response to softball. Since then, Chaumont and Coach Kevin Bertrand have been conducting practices and led the team through last year’s JV season and participation in a local summer league.