Tons of “Pride”

MONROE -- For the second time in a month, the Ville Platte Pride, a 10U fast-pitch team assembled from the VPGSA league, has taken home serious hardware in Fastpitch America Softball Association action.
Just last month, the Pride took on all comers and secured the Louisiana Fleur De Lis State Class C Championship in Broussard.
This past weekend the Pride upped their game, coming back from the loser’s bracket to win the Southern Classic played on the University of Louisiana-Monroe campus.
The Pride will return to action the weekend of July 25th, when they will participate in the HottrNL tournament back in Broussard. The team will finish out the season with an appearance in the FASA REC World Series to be held in Longview, Texas.
“If you watched us this past weekend, you would have seen two different teams,” stated Pride head coach Dr. Brandon Fontenot. “We did not play to our potential on Saturday. It was extremely hot and there was no air moving. The fact that we were playing on a turf field did not help us one bit. The girls were hurting by the end of the day.”
“But, on Sunday we came ready to play,” Fontenot continued. “Sunday’s play was the best I have ever from this team.”
The Pride started this past weekend’s tournament by splitting a pair of pool games on Saturday.
In the first pool game, the Pride found themselves behind five to one after one inning of play. However the bats came alive in the top of the second, as the team combined for three hits and five runs to take a 6-5 win over the Slam.
Saturday’s second pool game did not go as well for the Pride. This time the bats did not show up, as the team combined for four strikeouts in three innings in a 6-0 loss to Arkansas Impact.
On Saturday evening, the Pride got back on track offensively, as they destroyed the Lady Sox 14-4 in the first bracket game of the tournament.
The very first inning against the Lady Sox was all about patience at the plate. The first seven runs scored by the Pride were all produce via the walk.
After batting around in the inning, the hits became part of the show, as the Pride produced back-to-back-to-back hits, plating the next two runs.
The Pride finished out the game with three runs on three hits in the third inning.
The win pushed the Pride ahead in the bracket and forced them to face off against the same Slam team they defeated in pool play. This time the battle went a bit different as the Slam scored four runs in the first inning in route to an 11-9 win over the Pride.
In the game, the Pride trailed 4-1 after one inning of play and 7-4 after two innings of play. After surrendering four runs to the Slam in the third inning, the Pride tried to rally in the bottom half of the inning.
Walks and errors, sprinkled in with a couple of base hits allowed the Pride to pick up five runs in their last at bat, but it was not enough to overcome the deficit they faced. With the loss, the Pride now slipped into the loser’s bracket and a major challenge on Sunday.
With their backs against the wall, knowing a loss would send them home, the Pride came into the first bracket game on Sunday with renewed energy.
At high noon, the Pride began their quest for the tournament title, a quest that would force them to play four games, including three in a row. The first battle of the day saw the Pride take down the Bayou Bengals 5-0.
In the game, the Pride picked up three runs in the first inning on two hits and finished the game with two runs in the third inning.
After a short break, the Pride moved ahead in the bracket to take on the Lady Sox. The re-match between the two teams turned out to be a little closer than the 10 run Pride win the first time the two teams met, as Ville Platte came away with a 12-7 victory.
The Pride actually found themselves down 5-2 after one inning of play. However, Ville Platte put together some powerful offense over the next two innings and leaned on their pitching and defense to secure another win.
The Pride had no time to celebrate the win. Immediately following the victory over the Lady Sox, Ville Platte took on the Slam in a semi-final contest.
The game against the Slam turned out to be the closest of the tournament for the Pride. This time, it was defense and pitching that shone through, as Ville Platte downed the Slam 3-2.
The two teams found themselves tied at 1-1 after the first inning. The Pride plated two runs in the second and surrendered a single run in the same inning. From there, it was all about getting the outs, which the Pride did to seal the win.
Once again the Pride had no break to speak of. Ville Platte had to quickly re-grouped for a showdown with a team that had 10-run ruled most of their opponents throughout the tournament, the Louisiana Gunslingers. However this game was for all the marbles.
Using great pitching and defense, the Pride chipped away for a 6-1 win and the tournament title.
In the championship game, the Pride scored two runs in three of the five innings played and held the Gunslingers to a single run in the second inning.