Youthful accomplishment

Dixie Youth T-Ball All-Stars grab hold of District 7 Championship
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DEQUINCY -- History was made this past weekend, as the Dixie Youth T-Ball All-Stars claimed the first t-ball district championship in the history of Ville Platte baseball.
The All-Stars had to battle through the postponement of the first day and the heartbreaking loss to a team that they had beaten several times before to claim the tournament title. Ville Platte wound up finishing the tournament with an overall record of 7-1. The All-Stars will now compete in the State Tournament beginning on July 5 in Tioga.
“This is a huge accomplishment for this team and this league,” stated head coach David LaHaye. “When things looked bad, the players did a tremendous job of bouncing back and refocusing. We hadn’t played our best ball the three games prior to our loss, but we did enough to skate by.”
“When the loss happened, I think it shocked them and woke them up,” LaHaye continued. “From that point on, we finished out the tournament and were able to take home the championship. All of the coaches are super proud of the effort given by everyone on the team.”
Ville Platte began the tournament with four pool games. The All-Stars were able to handle their business and sweep their pool with a perfect 4-0 record.
In the first pool game, Ville Platte busted loose for 14 runs in the first two innings of play, as they cruised past Vernon Central 18-9.
Game two of pool play saw Ville Platte continue to roll on the offense, as they collected seven runs in three of the four innings of play to roll past host team DeQuincy 26-13.
One of the most thrilling games of the tournament came in game three of pool play. With the game on the line and Pine Prairie up 29-24, Ville Platte scraped up six runs in the bottom of their final at bat to pull off the 30-29 win.
Another barn-burner followed in the final pool play game for the All-Stars. Again, down five runs in the last inning, Ville Platte managed to pull it together long enough to slip past Vernon American 24-23 to end up one of the top seeds entering bracket play.
When bracket play did begin, Ville Platte held a ton of confidence in themselves. However, that confidence was not able to carry them to a win in the first game of the bracket, as they fell to a third seeded team, Vernon National, 28-16, a team that up to that point was 1-10 in their first 11 games played in the all-star season.
Ville Platte bounced back in the next bracket game, taking down Vernon Central, 22-18. This was the second time that they Ville Platte defeated that same team in the tournament.
The All-Stars now had revenge on their mind and it was revenge they got, as they were able to take down the team that had beaten them earlier, Vernon National, by the score of 37-23.
That win not only qualified the All-Stars for the state tournament, it also set up a situation where three teams, Ville Platte, Vernon National and Oakdale all had one loss each. Because of that, the teams each flipped a coin to determine who would play each other and who would sit out and await the winner.
Ville Platte won the toss and found themselves one game away from the title having to play the winner of the Vernon Central and Oakdale game.
In the end, it was Oakdale that got the opportunity to face off against the All-Stars and Ville Platte was more that ready.
Even though the All-Stars found themselves down 4-0 after one inning of play, the Ville Platte offense turned it up a notch and outscored Oakdale 7-0 in the second inning.
Oakdale took an 18-14 lead heading into the fifth and final inning of play, but Ville Platte, as they had all tournament long, secured the win with five unanswered runs.