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Ascension Parish baseball team on the verge of Little League World Series berth
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GONZALES, La. - A team from Ascension Parish has never made it all the way to Williamsport, Pa., for the Little League World Series. This year's 12U Majors are looking to change that.
AP won its second state title in program history to earn a trip to Waco, Texas, for the Southwest Regional Tournament. If the team wins it all in the Lone Star State, it's off to Williamsport.
Despite how talented the roster is, this team didn't make it to Waco on its own. They had a bit of help from their neighborhood.
"I called one of my buddies; I said we need four bats. We broke four bats," said Ascension Parish head coach Kyle Suire. "He said, ' Whatever you need, we'll take care of it."
The support ended up paying off. After the Majors dropped the opening game of the state tournament, they won six games in a row to win the tournament title, avenging last year's championship loss.
"It felt good that everybody doubted us," said AP shortstop Cooper Suire. "We were the underdog and it felt so much better to win."
As AP hit the practice field in preparation for Waco, an aura of confidence radiated from the field. It came off of the young player, for sure, but the origin of that confidence came from the coaching staff.
"There's no doubt in my mind we're going to win," said Coach Suire. "The kids feed off of that... I would rather have a kid overconfident than underconfident. A guy that is not confident is going to lose more than half of the time, because he's worried about failure. A guy that's overconfident isn't worried about failure. I'll gamble and take the percentage that that guy's going to win."
The confident mentality in the players takes the form of them thinking they'll just put more into each game than their opponents. And so far, they've been right.
"Outworking them. Just outworking them," said AP pitcher and outfielder Brock Purcell. "Just practicing and getting more reps."
Just like the confident AP style, that outworking attitude also comes down from the coaching staff.
"If our competition gets 100 reps, 100 ground balls, we're going to get 1000," said Coach Suire. "That's the mentality I set, and these coaches set for these kids on day one. There's no outworking them."
The Southwest Regional Tournament is scheduled to start on Thursday, Aug. 6.
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