Featured (Prep)

Sixteen innings and well over six hours in the beating sun Saturday began with Prairieville players and fans serenading coach Kade Keowen happy birthday, but ended with a chorus of visiting Live Oak fans roaring in victory.

The resurgent No. 23 Eagles (18-18), out of the Division-I Non-Select playoff picture just two weeks ago, played the ultimate spoiler to the No. 10 Hurricanes (25-11), rebounding from a 14-inning loss Friday to abruptly end their hosts’ first postseason appearance in program history with a pair of upsets, 5-4 in nine innings and then 10-6 in seven.

“The last six regular-season games we had, we really turned it on and just all started coming together as one and being the baseball team we knew we could be from the beginning of the year, and it finally just clicked for us,” Live Oak senior third baseman Mac Beadle said. “Last night obviously we took the hard loss in 14 innings, but the last six games really gave us that confidence and that belief that going into today that we could do whatever. We could advance to that next round, and we know we deserve to be there. We’re going to be there. That belief is there and that confidence is there. And we were going all-out dogfight today. We weren’t leaving this field until we were advancing.”

The Coastal Alabama North signee helped the team strike first in both games, reaching safely at the top of the order and then eventually coming around to score on a double off the wall by Tulane commit Cullen Weller early in the day and then an error on a ball hit by freshman second baseman Parker Morse a few hours later.

And Live Oak continued to lead the way much of the day and had immediate answers for the few times it briefly trailed, ending just one of the day’s 16 innings with a deficit.

The teams traded runs in the third and fourth innings of the first game — including a third-inning home run by Prairieville senior second baseman Colton Morris — and remained knotted at 3-3, until Hurricanes sophomore pinch-runner Caleb Matasa scored on a wild pitch in the top of the eighth.

Live Oak gradually loaded the bases in the bottom half, though, and eventually pulled back even when a Morse single to right brought home the tying run before the potential go-ahead was thrown out at home to extend the contest.

Sophomore righty Ripp Clark retired back-to-back Hurricanes in the top of the ninth to strand a runner at second, and free-passes once again piled up in the bottom half to set up a game-winning sacrifice fly by junior left fielder Adam Beeson Jr.

“These guys, they’ve done nothing but put the work in, and they finally about midway through the season just kept after it — that’s why I am like I am right now,” a teary Live Oak coach Cary Myers said, wiping his eyes. “Because they started believing in us. They started believing in each other, and our backs have been against the wall, so we’re used to and ready for it. The last six games of the season we had to win out to get in, and we did. We came here as the 23 seed versus the 10 seed, and there’s nobody that had us winning except us. I’m just proud of these guys.”

The Eagles pounced on miscues and opportunities even more emphatically in the rubber match.

Prairieville took a 2-1 lead in the bottom of the first highlighted by Liam Watkins and Dylan McClure singles and an RBI squeeze bunt by Morris.

But Live Oak went quickly to Aiden Cucinello out of the bullpen, and the senior righty ended that threat and allowed just one more run over the next four innings.

“Man, just throwing the fastball,” he said. “If they’re not gonna consistently hit base-hits with it, then why not just keep going back to it, right? And then you just keep ’em off-speed with the change-up and the curveball and let them do the work for you.”

Freshman catcher Jesse Bradley was also huge in helping seize back the early momentum, corralling a fortuitous ricochet of a pitch in the turf and tagging out a runner at the plate to end the first inning and then gunning down a runner at second base to end the next inning as well.

Some nice plays by sophomore shortstop Isaac Ott and scooping catches by Bossier Parish Community College-signed first baseman Zant Gurney were among other timely defensive highlights, including the duo combining for a double play to end the fourth.

The Eagles meanwhile hung back-to-back three-run innings in the second and third — their largest in five games and 48 total innings this season against the Hurricanes — and never trailed again.

Bradley and senior designated hitter Landry Smart drew a walk and a pitch in the leg, respectively, to put the first two runners on in the second inning.

Senior courtesy-runner Daylon Gonzales and Smart eventually scored on double down the left-field line by Beadle, who later followed home on a well-placed bunt single by Weller past the pitcher.

“I was just glad in this Game 3 that we finally did it in the first inning — we broke through, the offense finally got going,” Beadle said. “We got a bunt down, and we knew from the start that it was a lefty, he was gonna fall off to the right side, so a push down the first-base line is wide-open. And sure enough, laid down the push, dude falls over, get a run. First run of the game, and that’s when the offense really clicked, and we just started going from there.”

Bradley and Smart helped set the table for the rally the next inning as well as they and Beeson reached on an error, hit-by-pitch and single through the infield, respectively, to load the bases just an out into the third.

And Live Oak began grinding station-to-station as a Beadle single chopped to short and Jaxon Rosenthal and Weller knocks just shy of outfielders in right and center, respectively, brought home runners in three straight at-bats to climb the lead to 7-3.

Morse drew a leadoff walk in the sixth, gradually advanced and came home on a Bradley sacrifice fly to center.

“Hats off to those guys. It takes a lot of character and integrity out of those guys to have a 14-inning game here, drive all the way back to Watson and show back up here and win two games,” Keowen said. “So Cary and his staff did a great job. We just couldn’t get enough stuff going offensively. Even in this game right here, we had the bases loaded two different times and couldn’t get the two-out hit. Our kids battled and battled and battled.”

When Prairieville finally broke through again with a three-run bomb by LSU-Eunice-signed catcher Grant Gautreau to left in the bottom half, the Eagles answered again with a pair of insurance runs in the top of the seventh.

Rosenthal sparked the push with a two-out double to right-center and scored two batters later as Morse smoked a ball by the third baseman.

A pair of walks before and after Morse helped Live Oak loaded the bases again, and Ott brought a final runner home on a hit-by-pitch for the final 10-6 margin.

“Nobody thought we’d be here — nobody,” Cucinello said. “At one point we were what, 10-17, and we had six games left in the regular season, and then we won six in a row. And that was because everybody here knew what we had to do, and we finally had some lineup issues figured out. And when we got it figured out, everything just started clicking, and the pitchers really started to lock in, too.”

Sophomore righty Brice Craig relieved Cucinello after the Gautreau homer and recorded the final five outs for the save.

Prairieville was less successful handling the pitching strain of the marathon series, but McClure returned to the mound for his third appearance in two days and provided three gutsy innings and a chance.

“My goodness, gracious,” Keowen said of McClure. “I asked him over here, ‘Can you pitch?’ And he said, ‘Yes, sir, absolutely.’ The kid ends up throwing 100 pitches between the first game and the second game and finally just ran out of gas. You could tell he had nothing left out there, but that kid, we wouldn’t be in this position we’re in right now (hosting a playoff series) without kids like Dylan McClure that left everything they had out there on the field.”

The senior righty also went 2-for-3 with a pair of singles, an RBI and a hit-by-pitch in the decisive game.

And Gautreau, in addition to the homers by himself and Morris, was a bright spot in an offense that left just a few two many runs off the board. He finished 2-for-2 with the three-run homer, RBI single and two hit-by-pitches in the third game and 3-for-5 on the day as a whole with a double off the top of the wall, a walk and another hit-by-pitch in the earlier contest.

Saturday was a disappointing conclusion to notable season nonetheless for the young Hurricanes program, which in just its second full varsity year enjoyed early milestones of reaching its first postseason, hosting its first playoff series and winning Friday night’s opener.

“When you look back on today, it stinks, but when you look back on everything from February to now, you can’t be prouder of those kids that are in our dugout,” Keowen said. “They were in playoff situations. Our entire program until yesterday had never dressed out for a playoff game. So they didn’t know what they were in store for, and our entire program is going to end up being better for it.”

Live Oak, the 2025 state runner-up, meanwhile has now won at least one playoff series in a fifth straight year.

The Eagles will take the even shorter trip next week to another District 5-5A — and Livingston Parish — rival No. 7 Walker (25-9) with games scheduled for Thursday, Friday and Saturday if necessary.

Asked the team’s potential if continuing to play at the same level it showed Saturday, Beadle smiled, “”I mean, all I’ve got to say is just wait, find out, and you’re gonna see what the Live Oak Eagles are about to do.”