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The game was hanging in the balance for the Terrebonne softball team.
There were runners on second and third base with no outs in the top of the seventh inning and the Tigers pitcher, Shelby Bourque, was laboring on the mound for seemingly the first time in the afternoon.
Terrebonne was clinging to a 2-0 lead in a pivotal pre-playoff game against East Ascension – a game that probably decided whether the Tigers would have a home playoff game.
East Ascension entered that game the No. 2 team in the state in the latest Class 5A power rankings.
But while fans sat on the edges of their seats, the Terrebonne infielders smiled, giggled and eventually got out of the jam to secure a victory.
That laid back demeanor has been one of the driving force behind the team’s success this season.
“If we’re not outgoing, we’re not the same team,” Bourque said. “That’s just our personality.”
“If we’re in bad moods, we don’t play well,” Terrebonne catcher Sabrina Bergeron added.
A quick peek at the standings could show why the team is all smiles. The Tigers rolled through the Bayou District 11-1 and stormed into the playoffs red-hot, winners of 11-straight games.
“If they’re not talking or joking around before a game, I’m kind of nervous,” said Terrebonne coach Bess Guerrero. “It’s good sometimes, but other times you have to reel them back in. But I give credit to our players. They focus when they need to – and they’ll even tell one another to focus if it gets too far, so that’s a good thing.”
For most of the season, sound pitching and strong defense have been the cogs behind the Tigers’ success.
Bourque has limited opponents to one run or fewer in 17 games this season.
in their final 10 games of the season, dating back to the 2-0 win against East Ascension.
“Our team always plays good defense,” Bourque said. “And we need that to back up my pitching.”
But where the team lived on pitching and defense alone in the early part of the year, Guerrero said the team’s bats are beginning to come alive as of late.
Bergeron smacked a two-run home run against East Ascension, and as a team, the Tigers have tallied 10 or more runs three times in their past five games to give the team more balance – something Guerrero said they needed.
“It’s OK if you can pull wins together when you’re not hitting,” Guerrero said. “But I told them that eventually we need to start hitting the ball to play against these top teams. We played East Ascension earlier in the year and we lost 1-0, so this shows how a few hits here or there are the difference between a win and a loss against these big teams.”
What lies next for the Tigers is the state playoffs, which began on Tuesday.
Terrebonne was the No. 17-seed last season, which meant they were the highest-seeded road team in the first round of the playoffs.
The team lost a 2-1 game to Mandeville in the opening round of the playoffs in 2009.
With last year’s loss still fresh in their minds, the Tigers hope home field advantage is the X-factor for them this time around.
Terrebonne received the No. 12-seed when the brackets were announced on Saturday and played a home game against Covington in the first round on Tuesday. The score of that game was not available at press time.
With the playoffs in full swing, the team has one goal – overcoming their critics and advancing to Sulphur.
“We know we can hang with the Top 10 teams,” Guerrero said. “I’ve seen a lot of things written saying we can’t hang with the top teams, but I know my team can and I told them I’ve had all of the confidence in them from the beginning, so hopefully they can prove me right in the playoffs.”
Whether they do or don’t is not yet certain, but Bourque said the end result will be a lot of hard work on the practice field – even though the smiles and giggling may lead some to think otherwise.
“We might have to get put in line every once in a while,” she said. “But there aren’t many teams who work as hard as we do. I can promise that.”
Terrebonne pitcher Shelby Bourque successfully applies a tag to an East Ascension base runner in the Tigers’ 2-0 win last Tuesday. * Photo by CASEY GISCLAIR
