Starting a new season

Now that the regular season has come and gone for the Ville Platte Girls’ Softball Association, it is now time for the league to send out their very best to compete on the all-star level.
The VPGSA just recently picked the teams that will represent the league and Ville Platte in general throughout the summer in several post-season tournaments.
First year VPGSA President Sadie Figueiredo and her officers did a bang up job during the regular season to make sure all aspects of the year ran as smoothly as possible. When asked what she thought about the season and her first year at the helm of ship, Figueiredo sounded very pleased.
“This season went really well,” stated Figueiredo. “It went a lot smoother than I though it would. All of the parents were very cooperative. There were no issues.”
“Next year I am hoping that we get a bigger turnout in our eight and under league so that we can have more teams in that division,” Figueiredo continued. “All of the other divisions had plenty of girls, it is just that particular division that seemed to lack the participation for some reason.”
Figueiredo went on to express her gratitude to the coaches for their support of the league and their cooperation, especially in the process of picking the all-star teams.
“We had a lot of amazing girls to choose from when it came to all-stars and that made the coaches’ jobs that much harder,” said Figueiredo. “But, we had enough coaches step up and make that job a lot easier. I am very appreciative of the league coaches for the job they did this season and the job they are going to undertake during all-stars.”
According to Figueiredo, the VPGSA all-star season will be chock full of tournament play. The first tournament scheduled for the all-stars will be held in Broussard beginning on June 1. That tournament will be a USSSA event and all of the VPGSA teams will participate except the 12U all-stars.
The following weekend, June 8, is an independent tournament in Rayne, with all VPGSA teams involved except the 6U squad.
On June 15 all of the all-star teams will be in Crowley for a PONY warm-up tournament with the exception of the 12U team. The following weekend, June 21 the teams will attend the PONY Sectional tournament in Kaplan.
Eunice will be the sight for the PONY Regional Tournament starting on June 28 and will involve all of the VPGSA teams. The season will conclude with the PONY World Series in Youngsville beginning on July 16. The only team from Ville Platte that will not be at that particular tournament will be the 7U all-stars.
Figueiredo asked that the community help out later on when it will be time to raise money for each of the teams that will participate in all-star play.
“We will be doing some fund raising for these teams in the upcoming weeks, we just do not know exactly what that will entail,” stated Figueiredo. “Our goal is to be able to support all of the all-star teams. All the money raised will be split evenly amongst the teams.”
Not only is Figueiredo the president of the league, but she is also the head coach for the 6U all-stars. Figueiredo described what her goals were for her young squad.
“My main goal for this team this summer is to come out and really begin to love softball,” said Figueiredo. “A lot of these girls are pretty advanced. My wish is for them to learn the game and have some fun while doing that.”
The return of the 12U all-star team is a breath of fresh air for VPGSA. The league has not had an all-star team at that age group in a number of years due to the lack of participation at that age group. This year, VPGSA will field a team consisting of players from nine-years-old to 12-years-old, with most of the squad playing as an 11 year old.
Twelve and under head coach Melanie Delahoussaye is fired up to be able to give her team the chance to compete and get better.
“Right now we are not sure what we are going to face once we get into competition,” said Delahoussaye. “We may play a travel team or it may be a recreational team. Regardless, we are going forward and preparing for any situation. We were excited to get this team going to give these girls the chance to get more experience. I know they are ready to get started because they were really fired up the first day of practice.”
Along the lines of allowing some of the league participants to get more experience, the VPGSA is once again sponsoring a 7U all-star team. This team, named the Red Hots, have been a part of Ville Platte softball all-star play for a number of years.
Red Hots head coach Eric Soileau is hopeful that the extra time on the field will keep the players’ love of the game in tact.
“The Red Hots were started to help the seven-year-olds develop their game, but we also hope it makes them want to continue playing softball until they can’t anymore,” commented Soileau. “We just hope they improve in every aspect of the game. Confidence is what we are trying to build.”
The 8U All-Star team headed up by Jason Fontenot is a team that has had some major success in the past few years. Fontenot is hoping to keep maintaining the prosperity that this age group has gathered during that time.
“Our main focus is to get all of them to come together and play as a team,” said Fontenot. “If they can do that, then we want to tick off some team goals like making it to the World Series and compete at that tournament. Getting to the top two in the World Series would be great.”
“But, we are going to start small,” Fontenot continued. “As a league, we have not played PONY in three years, so I really don’t know what to expect. This group is quite unique because there is so much talent that it will be hard to determine where each of them fits on the field in terms of positions.”
Finally, the 10U all-stars led by head coach Lance Fontenot seem poised to make a big run in the all-star tournaments.
“We have a good strong group of nine-year-olds that make up the backbone of the team that along with the three 10-year-olds will hopefully give us some good solid play,” stated Fontenot. “So far, I have seen a bunch of enthusiasm on the field. This year we have five really good pitchers and some important depth at all of the positions. Our expectations are to try and take it all come World Series time.”