Brusly baseball and softball both in pursuit of state championship
BRUSLY - Brusly High School hopes to bring a couple of state titles back to campus in the coming weeks.
The Panther softball team is in the Division II Non-Select semifinals starting this Friday, and the Brusly baseball team enters this week's quarterfinal series as the No. 1 seed in Division II Non-Select.
The Panther softball team has won four state titles in school history, but the last one was in 2019, so nobody on this year's squad has a championship ring. In 2023 however, Brusly did make the semifinals, so a handful of players have experience at the state tournament in Sulphur.
"If you haven't touched the field there before it can be a pretty scary thing, so I think it's good to have some experience on the team with girls that have played there before," said senior Payten Albert. "I think we've got three girls on the field this year that have been on that field, on that stage, and I think that's going to be really helpful for those girls who haven't been there yet."
No. 2 Brusly will take on No. 3 Assumption in the semifinals on Friday at 2:30 p.m. at the North Frasch Softball Complex in Sulphur.
The baseball team doesn't have that same experience. The Panthers haven't won a state title in nearly 50 years. This year's team is different though, according to second-year head coach Jason Lemoine.
"I felt last year my first year here didn't have quite that team chemistry, a lot of talented ball players but just wasn't so together," said Lemoine. "So, I was like, 'Alright, what's the motto for this year?' The seniors chose 'we before me', and that's something I could see the change in them about midway through the season, and we've been rolling, won a lot of games, and playing very well."
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No. 1 Brusly is 32-5-1 this season and will host No. 9 North Vermillion in a best-of-three quarterfinals starting Thursday.