Pitching Machine All-Stars start off perfect at District

MAMOU -- A perfect start to what hopefully will be a perfect tournament.
That is what the Ville Platte Dixie Youth Pitching Machine All-Stars are wishing for, as they began the District 7 tournament with an unblemished 3-0 record here Thursday and Friday evening.
Ville Platte must now finish out their pool games and try to continue bringing their “A” game to bracket play, which starts today.
The Gazette will have the results of the remaining pool games, which were scheduled to take place yesterday, and the bracket games in Thursday’s edition.
The tournament consists of two round robin pools. The top three teams from each pool advanced to a double elimination bracket. That bracket will conclude on Monday with the championship game.
Ville Platte came out Thursday afternoon wanting to show the rest of the teams in the tournament that they were a squad to contend with. The All-Stars did just that, blasting Sulphur American, 16-0, in the opening game for both clubs.
In that game, Sulphur American found out the hard way that the Ville Platte defense was a formidable one, as Sulphur could only get two batters to reach base the entire game.
Ville Platte jumped out to a 1-0 lead after the first inning of play and then proceeded to score seven more runs in the top of the second. The All-Stars added four more runs in each of the next two innings to clinch the run-rule win.
Game two on Friday afternoon was simply a continuation of game one, as Ville Platte ran past Sulphur National 11-0 in four innings.
Once again, the Ville Platte defense proved to be on point, as Sulphur National did not have a runner reach second base the entire game.
The All-Stars got off to a slow start on offense, putting up a goose egg in the first inning. However, the bats came alive in the next three innings, as Ville Platte put up three runs in the second, one run in the third and seven runs in the fourth to put away Sulphur National and pick up the run-rule win.
The All-Stars then had to turn around and face a tough Vernon Central team immediately following their win over Sulphur. Having to play back-to-back put a strain on Ville Platte to start the game, as Vernon Central jumped out to a 2-0 lead after two innings of play.
Ville Platte got things going in the bottom of the third inning, plating seven runs to take over the lead. But, uncharacteristically for the Ville Platte defense, several errors were committed in the top of the fourth which allowed Vernon Central to pick up six runs of their own.
Vernon Central tacked on a run in the top of the fifth to go up 9-7. However, with their backs to the wall, Ville Platte found a way to plate three runs in the final at bat of the game to secure a dramatic come from behind 10-9 win.
“This was a great start to the tournament,” stated head coach Nick Fontenot. “But we still have a lot of work to do. The last win put is in the driver’s seat. We had one bad inning on defense, but other than that the kids never gave up”