Young, but experienced Parkview Baptist fights past Houma Christian to semis

1

Parkview Baptist is heading back to Sulphur with a lot of youth, but not inexperience.

And the No. 2 Lady Eagles’ talent and poise beyond their years showed early and often in Thursday’s quarterfinals as they shook off an early deficit to cruise past No. 10 Houma Christian, 7-2, and back to their second straight state tournament in Division-III Select.

“I was very proud of ’em,” Parkview Baptist coach Ashlee Ducote Weems said. “I knew early in the game that two runs, I wasn’t worried. I know this team can come back and fight, but it was good to see that they fought with two strikes and two outs. That was a good really for us, good momentum because we’ve been struggling lately trying to get out the gate really fast. So it was good to see them come back and fight really hard in those situations.”

Eighth-grade shortstop Piper Prevost took a pitch off the helmet to start the game to set the table for the Lady Warriors (14-12), and eighth-grade catcher Kayson Besh blooped a single into shallow right field two batters later.

Both runners advanced on a pitch in the turf, and sophomore second baseman Kamryn Arnaud was able to bring both home as Parkview Baptist had trouble on an infield play and she managed to reach safely.

“We showed up ready to play,” HCS coach Bree Aguillard said. “Regardless of who our opponent is, we come out on this field ready to go every inning. Our biggest goal is just to beat the inning — not look at the foreseeable future, but just right then and right now see that inning and win it.”

The Lady Eagles’ answer was swift and strong, though.

Sophomore catcher Addie Young put a one-out, 0-1 pitch into right field, and eighth-grade third baseman Aimee Gawlik worked back from an 0-2 count to follow her teammate on base.

Two batters later, freshman pitcher Jalayah Slaughter drilled a double deep into the outfield to knot the game, 2-2, with a pair of two-our runs.

And junior shortstop Lily Hammonds launched a 2-2 bomb over the centerfield fence to give Parkview Baptist (29-6) its first lead, 4-2.

“I saw a lot of outside,” she said. “I didn’t really get in much. A lot of my other teammates did, but I saw out, so I toed up the line and waiting for my pitch.”

Slaughter, meanwhile, was cruising in the circle.

While Houma Christian had managed to piece together a couple of runs in the top of the first, the young righty still managed to record three strikeouts in the frame.

She continued that pace the rest of the way, but without the hiccups, as she fanned 13 batters in all and allowed just one total base-runner from the second to sixth innings and just six total in any fashion.

“I knew I had to keep going, I had to keep spinning my pitches and hitting my spots, because the moment I throw it down the middle, they’ll eventually hit it,” Slaughter said. “I just decided to hit my spots and control the game basically like it was like a Playstation or something.

“It was mainly my curveball in. I see them getting up on the box, and I see them hogging the plate. So I just decided to make it look like it’s about to hit ’em and then curve it on the inside.”

A couple Warriors managed to reach again in the seventh on a hit and an error, but Slaughter retired the final two batters, including the final strikeout to put the exclamation mark on her two-hit performance.

“They capitalized, and we tried to come back, but it wasn’t in our cards,” Aguillard said. “It wasn’t for a lack of effort. I’m so proud of these girls. They gave it their all, and they put everything into this game.”

The first-inning rally would’ve been more than enough to support Slaughter’s gem.

But she and her teammates added some insurance to continue tightening their grip.

Slaughter started off another two-out rally in the third, working back from an 0-2 count to hit a single right back up the middle.

Hammonds drew a walk, and freshman left fielder Grace Aucoin — battling out of an 0-2 count as well — brought both runners home with double to the wall in right-center.

And Gawlik later put the second pitch in the bottom of the fifth inning out of the park in dead center to push the margin to 7-2.

“It’s good momentum, and it’s to show them that they can fight and they can come back from adversity,” Ducote Weems said. “If you have a bad at-bat, your next at-bat could be the one that we need. It could be the game-winner. It could be the one that gives us the lead and have that momentum going in. It also helps our pitcher with confidence to know that ‘if I’ve got a five-run lead, I can maybe make a mistake here and there.'”

Parkview Baptist, the 2025 runner-up, will face either No. 3 Notre Dame (31-2) or No. 6 Northlake Christian (21-9) in next Friday’s semifinals.

No. 1 Calvary Baptist (35-1), last year’s champion, is already into the semifinals on the other side of the bracket and awaits either No. 4 D’Arbonne Woods Charter (20-11) or No. 5 St. Louis Catholic (21-6).

“Now they know what it is. Now they know the environment,” said Ducote Weems, a former All-American third baseman at LSU. “We try to prepare them as much as we can. It’s really hard to prepare for that type of atmosphere there, but we try to prepare them during that week of. We tell them the noise and everything. So I was proud of that team last year. They didn’t let any of that effect them. And a lot of that group is back, so they know what’s there. They know what to expect and how the environment’s gonna be.

“I told ’em in the (postgame) circle, let’s just go have fun. Yeah, everybody wants to win. There’s gonna be four teams left. You’ve been working this hard all year, so let’s just go have some fun and win.”

Houma Christian meanwhile wraps up a solid first season under Aguillard, the former Terrebonne and Nicholls State player who took over during this school year from longtime coach Christi Crowdus.

“We have absolutely no seniors,” she said. “The majority of our team starts from sophomores all the way down to seventh-grade with one junior. The first half of the season we had to teach a lot of maturity and elevating their game and just putting trust in me as their first-year coach. And we just started to come together and started to unify. This team had all odds against them, and they just stepped up and persevered through every adversity that they had.”