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There was no doubt. Not last year, not this time around, either. 

For the second consecutive year, Parkway’s sensational senior guard Mikaylah Williams is the Louisiana Farm Bureau Insurance Miss Basketball winner, selected by the Louisiana Sports Writers Association. 

Williams is the fifth Louisiana high school female student-athlete to become a two-time winner of the award in the 28 years of its existence. She joins Kisha James of Pineville (1997-98), Seimone Augustus of Capitol (2001-02), Kalani Brown of Salmen (2014-15) and Cara Ursin of Destrehan (2016-17). 

Her 2022-23 season statistics were not eye-popping for a player of her caliber. In nearly every game, Parkway blew out the opponents and Williams was flanked by two more All-State players and other very skilled teammates. The 6-foot-1 Williams averaged 19 points, 7.0 rebounds, 4.4 assists and 2.6 steals. 

Williams, regarded by many as the top 2023 women’s basketball recruit in the country, led Parkway (30-5, 25-1 against in-state foes) to the LHSAA Non-Select Division I state title as the Lady Panthers blasted each of their playoff opponents, including in the state championship game as she poured in 27 points in a dominating 80-57 victory over Ponchatoula. A year earlier, Parkway was edged in double overtime to Ponchatoula in the 2022 title game. 

Williams set the tone in the championship game as she scored 14 points in the first half to help Parkway take control, nailing a 3-pointer from about 30 feet as the first-half buzzer sounded. When the shot hit the net, Williams uncharacteristically dashed off the court toward the locker room. But because of her accomplishments in the classroom, she had to turn around and return to the floor to accept Academic All-State recognition at halftime. 

Williams had her pick of scholarship offers from the top programs in women’s college basketball before she picked LSU last fall. Even with all of the talent Kim Mulkey has returning and is bringing in after the Tigers’ national championship season, Williams is expected to make an immediate impact in the playing rotation as a freshman.

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Calvary Baptist has won a state championship in softball the last two years maybe because it didn’t have to face Menard of Alexandria in the playoffs.

The Lady Cavaliers were beaten in the state semifinals their previous two trips (2018, 2019) to Sulphur in the semifinals by the Lady Eagles, so Saturday’s 14-1 five-inning win in the LHSAA Select Division III quarterfinal in Alexandria was big. 

Every Calvary batter in the lineup had a hit in a barrage of 17 total with Tavia Leadon leading the way, going 4-for-4 with a double and home run. Carlie Guile was 3-for-4 with a triple, while Mallory Carver was 2-of-4 with a home run and four RBIs. DJ Lynch homered in going 2-for-4 and drove in three and Abby Sims was 2-for-3.

Calvary took a 3-0 lead in the first inning on an RBI single by Mary Grace Woodle and Elana Franks’ two-run single. 

After Menard struck for its only run in the second inning to pull within 3-1, the Cavs blew things wide open with an eight-run fourth inning. Lynch started it with a three-run homer and Woodle brought in a run with a sacrifice fly. Carver culminated the scoring with a grand slam to stake Calvary to an 11-1 lead. 

Leadon closed out the scoring for the Lady Cavs with a three-run home run in the fifth inning.

Kynzee Anderson pitched a complete game to get the win in the circle, allowing five hits while she walked two and struck out eight. 

Calvary’s only other defeat of Menard in the playoffs was in the 2016 Division III finals. The Lady Eagles have the playoff series edge with four semifinal wins. The defeat keeps them out of the state tournament for the first time in nine years.

The top-seeded Lady Cavs will play No. 4 Houma Christian at the North Frasch Softball Complex in Sulphur Friday at 5 p.m.

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Benton, Haughton and Parkway all advanced to the second round of the LHSAA’s Non-Select Division I baseball playoffs by taking the first two games in best-of-three series. Loyola dropped out of the Select Division III bracket after losing both of Saturday’s games that followed a Flyers’ win on Friday.

Benton defeated District 1-5A foe Natchitoches Central 5-4 Saturday after taking a 3-1 win Thursday. The Tigers walked it off on a Kenner Lauterbach sacrifice fly to centerfield that scored Bryson Pierce. Cale Latimer was 2-for-3 for the Tigers with a home run and three pitchers limited the Chiefs to four hits as they walked two and struck out 10. Riley Bruton pitched the final three innings for the win allowing one hit, one unearned run, while he walked one and struck out three.

Haughton took both games from Covington on Saturday after Friday’s first game was rained out. The Bucs got a shutout from Austin Anderson (8-4) in a 10-0 win in the first game. Christian Turner and Zach Ross were both 3-for-4 with Turner hitting a home run and driving in four runs. Haughton held off the Lions in the second game with an 8-7 nailbiter as Turner hit another home run and drove in two. Colin Rains was 3-for-4 with a double. Gary Rondeau (3-0) got the win and Caleb Brown earned his second save of the season.

Parkway got a pair of pitching gems to defeat Chalmette 3-0 on Friday and 2-1 on Saturday. Shawn Driggers limited the Owls to seven hits, one walk and struck out five in posting the shutout. Trenton Lape was 2-for-3 with a double and RBI. Colton Smith got the win on Saturday allowing one unearned on four hits, although he walked six, but struck out five. Brandon Levy and Abel Thetford had doubles for the Panthers, now 22-8.

Loyola took the first game of its series with Newman in New Orleans 4-2 in eight innings on Friday. Gavin Brint allowed one earned run pitching the complete-game win. He allowed seven hits, walked three and struck out four. Hayden Horton’s two-run single in the eighth provided the winning runs. Gray Deason was 3-for-3 with a double and drove in the Flyers’ first two runs with a first-inning single.

The Greenies ended the Flyers’ season with wins of 7-1 and 14-1 on Saturday. Deason’s home run was one of three hits for Loyola (10-23) in the first game and Murphy Tamplin was 2-for-2 in the second game.  

In the summer of 1975 in American Legion baseball, Ricou-Brewster won 15 straight games and was running away with it in the standings as the North Louisiana playoffs approached. But by the end of July, things started to go south for the Jesuit (now Loyola)-based team.

Night after night, Ricou-Brewster piled up one-run losses – including two on the same night. Once 16-2, the team was now 16-7 and battling to stay alive for the post-season.

A series of rainouts had forced the team to play these games on consecutive nights, so they were rapidly running out of pitching.

Now, this is where the story gets a little fuzzy, so you can believe what you like. One of the remaining games had to be postponed because of poor field conditions. It seemed as though someone had gone out to Cherokee Park field in the middle of the night and put tire tracks all throughout the infield.

Therefore, the game had to be postponed, giving the team a much-needed day of rest.

The young coach of the team is alleged to have said to his players upon giving them the news of the day off, “If one of y’all did this, I don’t want to know about it.” And then he looked at one of his star players. “But if it was you, Jones, good job.”

These days, a few high school baseball coaches across the state are basically doing the same thing, only they are far less obvious in their methods.

What they are doing is not against the rules, but it should be. What has been happening – and it will get worse unless the LHSAA does something about it – is the manipulating of the schedule in order to try to either get their team into the playoffs or move into a better seeding position.

A quick primer: Baseball uses the power-point system, based on 20 points for a win, one point for each of your opponents’ wins and two points for each classification you play up. Without getting into too much detail, you could actually improve your position by losing to a team in a higher classification with a bunch of wins.

One local coach says he got a call last Friday night about 10 o’clock from a Division IV coach in South Louisiana wanting to know if he wanted to play a double-header the next day. The local coach, whose team is one of the top seeds in its division, told the caller that he already had a game scheduled. Undeterred, he was asked about the possibility of working something out with that third team so that everyone could get in two games on Saturday.

Spurned by the local coach Friday night, it should come as no surprise that the Division IV coach found games on Sunday and Monday – both against Class 5A schools — that weren’t previously scheduled.

And that was from a coach whose team already had a playoff spot locked up, just trying to move up a spot in order to get a potential home quarterfinal series. He did win both of the “add-on” games, but failed to move up.

Justice.

A Division III team in the New Orleans area posted a schedule in the pre-season that showed the final game of the season would be played on April 13. But when that school found itself on the outside looking in when it came to making the playoffs, suddenly a game against a Class 5A school with more than 20 wins appeared on the schedule for the final day of the season. Not just one game — a double-header. They lost both games, but didn’t move up enough to make the playoffs.

One local coach had a game cancelled on him during the last week of the season as his team was fighting to make it into the playoffs. No reason given. Unspoken was that the cancelling team didn’t want to take a chance on a loss and dropping out of a potential first-round home game.

Didn’t work out and, by the way, the team that had its game called off made the playoffs anyway.

There’s a simple solution to all of this: there should be a date, certainly before the end of March, in which no games can be added or cancelled. Right now, it is allowed until two days before the end of the regular season.

That’s ridiculous.

If a game gets rained out, you can make it up, but that game has to be on your original schedule. But only as many games as were previously scheduled.

And you can’t leave the water hose on all night and call it a rain out. If that’s the case, then the opponent gets to be the home team.

If you want to cancel a game, it’s a forfeit. Because that’s basically what happens if you do that during football season. (This also happens in basketball on occasion, but not to the degree that it does in baseball.)

And so what eventually happened to that Ricou-Brewster American Legion team in 1975? They lost that postponed last game. Of course, it was by one run.

You might say they had tire tracks all over them when the season was over.

Contact JJ at johnjamesmarshall@yahoo.com

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NATCHITOCHES – Benton senior lefthander Sawyer Simmons tossed a two-hitter to help lead the Tigers to a 3-1 defeat of Natchitoches Central in the first game of a three-game Non-Select Division I LHSAA baseball playoff series Thursday evening.

Simmons didn’t allow a run or hit after the Chiefs got both in the first inning to take a 1-0 lead. Alex Dupuy ripped a two-out double to centerfield, Brock Laird walked and Dillon Braxton singled in Dupuy. 

Benton (20-15) tied the game in the fourth inning on a Kenner Lauterbach run-scoring single that scored Hudson Brignac.  

The Tigers took the lead in the fifth as Cole Weir scored on a Case Jorden single. After advancing to second on a wild pitch, Jorden scored on a fielding error for a 3-1 lead. 

Simmons recorded his 11th strikeout of the game to start the seventh inning before hitting a batter, which ended his day on the mound.  Thomas Allen came in and walked the first batter he faced before getting the second out on a sacrifice bunt and ending the game on a line drive to leftfielder Weir.  

Lauterbach was 2-for-3 at the plate and Cale Latimer had a double. 

Benton will be back in Natchitoches at Chad Hargis Field Saturday for game two of the series with the Chiefs needing a win to force a game three. First pitch is set for 1 p.m., and the third if-necessary game has a tentative 3:30 start time.

EVANGEL 15-11, MCKINLEY 0-0: The No. 13 Eagles swept both games from the No. 20 Panthers to win the best-of-three series and advance to the regional round in the Select Division II bracket. Both games ended because of the run rule. The first went three innings with Jayce Gill not allowing a baserunner, striking out six of the nine batters he faced. Evangel had 12 hits with Eli Scheen, Kody Jackson, Peyton Fulghum, Bryce Templin and Garret Burns all getting two. Game two lasted five innings with Evangel (12-20) getting multiple hits from Scheen (2-for-2), Jackson (2-for-4), Peyton Fulghum (2-for-2) Landon Martin (2-for-3) and Parker Fulghum (3-for-3). The Eagles will face No. 3 Teurlings Catholic in the quarterfinals next weekend. 

Here is a glance at the local LHSAA playoff pairings: 

First round 

Select Division I 

No. 4 Captain Shreve (22-12), Bye                                                      

No. 5 Northwood (27-7), Bye 

No. 10 Byrd (21-13), Bye  

Select Division II 

Thursday’s scores: No. 13 Evangel 15-11, No. 20 McKinley 0-0. Evangel wins series 2-0.

Select Division III 

No. 6 Calvary (24-10), Bye 

No. 19 Loyola (9-21) at No. 14 Newman (11-20), Today, 7 p.m.; Saturday, 1 p.m., if necessary 4 p.m. 

Non-Select Division I 

No. 24 Chalmette (18-11) at No. 9 Parkway (21-8), Today, 6 p.m.; Saturday, 11 a.m., if necessary 2 p.m. 

No. 23-Covington (24-9) at No. 10 Haughton (22-11), Today, 6 p.m.; Saturday, 1 p.m., if necessary 4 p.m. 

Thursday’s score: No. 20 Benton 3, No. 13 Natchitoches Central 1. Benton leads series 1-0.

Saturday’s games:  Benton (20-15) at Natchitoches Central (24-10), 1 p.m., if necessary 3:30 p.m.  

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Loyola’s tennis teams were extremely successful in the Division III regionals this week at Pierremont Oaks in Shreveport. The girls’ team won first place and the boys’ team was co-champion with Calvary. 

Mae Graf and Cassidy Kirk won the girls’ doubles title. Sophia Fertitta and Audrey Dufrene were runners-up in girls’ doubles. Sanders Graf and Ravi Ahuja won the boys’ doubles title. Bo Bowman and Gregor Ghali were runners-up in boys’ doubles. 

The regional girls’ singles champ was Mary Elberson. Taylor Nash was runner-up. 

Keller Brown was a boys’ singles semifinalist. Sadie Green and Addison Knox were girls’ doubles semifinalists.

Stander Olsan and Collier White were boys’ doubles quarterfinalists. Landon Hooper was a boys’ singles quarterfinalist. 

All of these Flyers qualified for the state tournament in Monroe next week.

DIVISION III DISTRICT I-2A GOLF: The Flyers boys’ golf team won the district team title earlier this week at Querbes by 63 strokes. The team was led by Charles Valiulis with a score of 68 and Charlie Bell with a 69. Valiulis won the individual district title. Rounding out the top five for Loyola and in the tournament were Ross Alford (72), Jack Lauve (73) and Connor Cassano (74). 

Calvary’s best scores were a pair of 83s from Ezra Smith and Trip Jones.

The regional championship will be staged Monday at Stonebridge.