Abbeville 12s finish third in state tournament

KENTWOOD - Despite losing the first game of the Louisiana Cal Ripken Baseball Tournament, the Abbeville 12-and-under All Stars battled back through the loser’s bracket to finish third out of 13 teams.
Abbeville All-Star Coach Trenton Baudoin said the team peaked at the right time.
“We really got hot at the right time,” said Baudoin. “Most of these kids have played nearly 40 baseball games dating back to March, and they certainly saved their best baseball for this tournament. We played well in all three phases of the game: pitching, hitting, and fielding.”
Abbeville’s two losses came against the two teams that were in the state finals.
Abbeville opened the tournament with a 9-4 loss to St. Charles and then played two games and combined to outscore their opponents 26-9.
In the loser’s bracket they beat Madisonville 4-3 that put them one game away from reaching the state finals.
William McDaniel scored the game-winning run on a passed ball in the bottom of the sixth inning in Abbeville’s 4-3 win over Madisonville.
Next, Abbeville met West Feliciana. A win would put them into the finals.
Abbeville jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning, but then gave up 8 unanswered runs in the second and third innings.
Abbeville fought back to make it an 8-3 game, and then an 8-4 game on Brannen Manuel’s solo home run.
Abbeville tacked on two more runs in the bottom of the sixth frame.
In the tournament, Abbeville used only three pitchers for the six games. The pitchers were Damon Hebert, William McDaniel and Jacob Noegal.
“We would not have been in this tournament without the pitching of our three pitchers,” Baudoin said. “They never had a rough outing throughout the entire tournament. Damon, Jacob and Will came up with some very quality innings in really close baseball games. We were in some pressure situations in almost every game we played and it never seemed to bother them one bit. They just kept throwing strikes, and we kept playing great defense behind them.”
Abbeville catcher Lioneron Willis had a heck of a game behind the plate. His arm was tested on steal attempts and he answered by throwing many out whom tried to steal second base or third base.
“Lioneron bailed us out of multiple innings by catching someone stealing, or picking runners off at third base,” Baudoin added. “Against Madisonville, he picked two runners off at third base, with less than two outs in the inning. Lioneron’s play behind the plate was huge for us, all weekend.”
Three Abbeville players had home runs. Brannen Manuel hit two home runs, while Damon Hebert and Noegel hit each a homer.
“We faced as good of pitching as we have ever seen in this tournament,” Baudoin said. “Whenever we arrived, we did not have a kid who hit a home run in their lives. We left the tournament with four home runs. Our hitting came through in big spots all weekend. We did not always score a ton of runs, but we found ways to get runs across the board in spots where we needed them most.”
Abbeville qualified for state by finishing second in district two weeks ago in Abbeville. Once again, Abbeville had to claw its way through the loser’s bracket in district to reach the finals.
Baudoin was proud of how the team performed,. because of their fight and determination in both tournaments. He was also proud of how his team carried themselves in Kentwood.
“On the last day of the tournament multiple people came up to me and told me they loved watching Abbeville play, and they were rooting for us all weekend,” he said. “I was told we were the team with the most heart in the tournament. As a coach, there isn’t a greater complement you can get than to hear, from neutral people, that your team played with heart. Our kids really left everything out on the field and they represented Abbeville really well. The people in Kentwood will always remember Abbeville, Louisiana because of the way those ten boys played baseball in this state tournament.”