High-Mileage Wildcats: Destrehan covers plenty of ground to reach state semifinals
by William Weathers // GeauxPreps.com Contributor
The traveling Destrehan baseball show will be back on the road again, where the Wildcats have already upset the Nos. 3 and 6 seeds to reach the Division I non-select state semifinals.
No. 14 Destrehan (29-12) is the highest-seeded team remaining in the state playoffs among the larger-school brackets and visits No. 2 Sam Houston, the reigning Division I state champion, to start a best-of-three series at 6 p.m. Friday.
The series is scheduled to continue Saturday at noon with a third game, if necessary, set for 2 o’clock.
An opening-game home loss to Fontainebleau put Destrehan in the unenviable position of having to win twice to continue its season. Not only did the Wildcats answer, but they’ve also responded by playing some of their best baseball over the past three weeks, building a six-game winning streak that’s required three consecutive long road trips totaling 833 miles.
To get where the Wildcats ultimately want to wind up, which is another 18 miles between Moss Bluff and Sulphur – site of the LHSAA state tournament – they’ll have to contend with the Broncos (30-8), who are riding a 10-game winning streak following their quarterfinal sweep of No. 10 Walker.
“I’d be lying if I said I could foresee this run coming,” said Destrehan coach Chris Mire, now in his 12th season at the St. Charles Parish school and 19th overall as a head coach. “Not because I didn’t like our group, but there’s so many things you can’t control or identify that are important. From the start, they’ve gone out to team dinners a lot on their own. Everybody on the team is super close. Seniors with freshmen, the guys aren’t divided by grade.
“It’s a special group that’s bought into the concept of playing for one another and trusting in one another, which is something as a coach that gets you really excited,” Mire said. “You know that all of the talks, all of the offseason workouts, all of the preaching that you do, is clicking. They’re getting it, and they’re starting to see the benefit, and it’s snowballed.”
Since dropping a highly competitive series to arch-rival Hahnville, resulting in the District 8-5A championship, Destrehan cemented a home playoff series with a 9-4 win over Pope John Paul on the final playing date of the regular season.
The Wildcats passed their first elimination test after being shutout in the bi-district opener, answering with 7-4 and 12-2 victories to earn the right to travel to face third-seeded West Monroe and LSU signee Bradyn Cupit.
“They’ve really handled everything in stride, which is a credit to those guys and just the maturity of our team,” Mire said. “I love being on the road with them, to be honest. Of course, you’d rather play at home in front of your fans and sleep in your beds.”
Pitching and defense have been cornerstones in the team’s recent stretch.
Destrehan’s pitching triumvirate of Josh Muller, Chase Mire, and Chase Marcotte have been lights out in front of a defense that carries a .944 fielding percentage.
“The pitching has been great, and it’s been great for us all year,” Mire said. “The difference is that we’ve been playing outstanding defense, which we kind of started doing late in the season before the playoffs. We kind of got going before the playoffs, but it didn’t really look that way because we lost some close games to some really good teams.
“As a coach, you try to get your team to understand that you’re playing well, it’s going to pay off,” Mire said. “They don’t always believe it. This group is different. They understood they were playing good ball. They just needed to stick with it.”
For the third time in five seasons, Destrehan’s season ended in the first round of the playoffs in 2025. The Wildcats (21-14) evened their series with Central before they were eliminated, 4-0.
With the bulk of its pitching returning – Muller, Marcotte, and Mire – the coach’s son, Destrehan, was optimistic for the upcoming season.
Junior Brody Fairleigh made significant gains during the summer, and Landyn Dugas was a highly touted freshman who wound up starting for the school’s football team.
“They all pitched a good deal of innings, all four made a start at one point last year,” Coach Mire said of Muller, Marcotte, and Mire. “We had the main core of our rotation back. We were trying to find the supporting pieces. We needed to find some guys to build around them. Brody’s development was crucial, and Dugas being able to come in and handle that was crucial.”
Eight wins in the first nine games to start the season suggested Destrehan was on the cusp of a gratifying year.
The Wildcats then hit a bumpy patch with three straight losses to Ruston, Mandeville, and Ruston, and wound up losing five of six games and had a 9-6 record following a 6-1 loss to Brother Martin.
During that slide, the Wildcats lost the services of junior pitcher/outfielder Frank Harding III to a season-ending Achilles injury. He started the team’s final 13 games of the ’25 season and remained in the lineup until the time of his setback.
“That was around the time when we went through a little funk,” Mire said. “Frank is an energetic, positive-vibe kind of guy, and it took our team a while to recover from that. He was a center fielder, hitting the ball really well, and was a base stealer.”
It wasn’t until district play that Destrehan began hitting its stride.
The Wildcats reeled off eight straight wins – five of which were league games mixed in – setting up the first of a two-game series for the district title with Hahnville.
LSU commitment Koa Romero fired a one-hit shutout in a 1-0 victory, and the Tigers had a walk-off single for a 5-4 win in the second game.
Marcotte and Champ White each homered in Game 2, which Destrehan led 4-3 after the fourth and tied again at 6-all in the sixth.
The Wildcats went on to win 15 of their last 18 games with the finale against Pope John Paul to nail down an opening-round playoff series.
“There’s been a lot of coaching turnover at places in our district, and they’re working hard to get better and improve the district,” Mire said. “The district doesn’t help us climb (in power rankings). We know we have to play a tough schedule early in the season. That way, we can kind of have some room at the back end.
“It comes down to the games with Hahnville, where if you split, the team kind of holds their ground,” Mire said. “If you lose both, the losing team’s going to fall, which happened to us.”
Fontainebleau junior left-handed Tanner Conley Jr. came as good as advertised in a 1-0 opening victory over Destrehan.
“He was as good anybody’s ever seen on that day, which was unbelievable,” Mire said. “He kept us to zero. We kept them to one. Just tip your cap to Conley. The scarier part was coming into game two; they had another good arm. We knew we had to create some kind of pressure. We weren’t able to do anything in game one.
The series was stretched over three days, which enabled Destrehan to rely on its pitching depth.
Mire’s son, the team’s scheduled starter for Game 3, came in for a three-inning relief performance for a tiring Muller and preserved a lead that turned into a 7-4 victory in the second game.
“We had to get that win,” Coach Mire said.
Fairleigh, who made five to six starts during the season, got the ball in the deciding game with the intention of going as deep into the game as possible. That turned into solid 5.1 innings of work, and the Wildcats’ offense backed him with five runs in the first inning – highlighted by Marcotte’s home run.
“Brody’s like the unknown guy in the group because he’s not in the big three,” Mire said. “He’d given us some quality starts throughout the year, and we knew we had Landon Dugas, who is just as talented as any of those guys that we had available. The key was the offense from the get-go. We’ve done this enough times; we’ve got to win two out of three. It doesn’t matter which two.
“There was no panic,” Mire said. “We have strong leadership on this team. We came into game two, feeling like we’ve got to win one and get it to a three-game set. We thought we had the better pitching matchup in game three if we could get it there. Halfway through the second game is when things started rolling. They made some mistakes defensively; we got going, and I think everybody showed up for game three. We were locked in, and there was no doubt we would find a way to win that game.”
Mire was pitched by the committee to oppose the fire-balling Cupit. He believed that to combat the hitting of the Rebels, his predetermined rotation of senior Brady Carter, Fairleigh, and Dugas were equipped with enough cutters and sliders to make the home team chase pitches out of the strike zone.
“They probably thought we were crazy with that pitching lineup,” Mire said of his team. “We noticed if you could keep the ball moving away from their hitters, they had a tendency to get themselves out. We wanted to make sure we had our top arms available for games two and three.”
Mire’s pitching plan worked to perfection. His trio – with Fairleigh getting the win with a four-inning effort – didn’t allow any runs and combined to limit West Monroe to four hits with Dugas picking up the save with a scoreless seventh inning.
“Did we expect to go out and throw a shutout? No,” Mire said. “We knew they would give us a chance.”
Destrehan’s offense got to Cupit, who struck out 11, for four hits with Lucas beating out a bunt to lead off the top of the seventh. He stole his third base of the game, and after two were out, Carter’s groundball between the first baseman and pitcher provided trouble.
Carter was able to leg out the hit and enabled Lucas to score the game-winning run from second base.
“Nothing’s easy facing Brayden Cupit,” Mire said. “We knew there weren’t going to be a lot of runs scored on our part.”
The score was 1-1 in the second game when the wind, which had been blowing in, reversed course and began blowing out amid falling rain.
White’s RBI-groundout in the fourth snapped the tie, and Joshua Muller’s single tipped off a four-run sixth.
The Rebels tried to rally against Muller, who got the first two outs of the seventh before Cupit tripled in a pair of runs when a lengthy delay halted play.
“That worked in our favor,” Mire said. “The momentum had flipped, and we were able to get Marcotte loose without having to rush him.”
Marcotte, the projected starter for a potential Game. 3, appeared on the mound following the delay and retired West Monroe on a total of 23 pitches, getting out of a bases-loaded jam with a fly ball to right that ended the series.
“We decided with a multi-run lead, let’s go get the win,” Mire said of the decision to bring in Marcotte. “Two of our top three pitchers (Marcotte and Chris Mire) threw a total of 23 pitches in the series.”
Destrehan successfully followed its template of taking an aggressive approach at the plate, relying on a superb running game, along with great pitching and defense, to make it stand up with identical 4-2 scores against Benton.
The series was pushed back a day because of rain, and the Wildcats and Tigers were locked in a pitcher’s duel with Chase Mire keeping the home team off the scoreboard through five innings.
Destrehan broke through with a four-run sixth inning, started by a base-loaded hit by pitch. The Wildcats made it 4-0 on Jaden Sloan’s bases-loaded double.
Benton answered with two runs in the bottom half of the inning and knocked Mire out of the game after 5.2 innings. He allowed four hits, walked two, and struck out six before Marcotte worked a scoreless 1.1 with three strikeouts.
Muller got the start in Game 2 and limited Benton to one first-inning run on a sacrifice fly with the bases loaded.
The Wildcats gained control with three runs in the bottom half of the inning, with three hits and two errors, and added another run in the bottom of the third.
Benton picked up a two-out run in the sixth but couldn’t get any closer against Muller, who went 5.2 innings, allowed six hits, four walks, and struck out one. Marcotte appeared for a second straight game and threw 1.1 innings in relief.
“The guys that have been pitching well have been doing that all year,” Mire said. “It’s not anything that’s been unexpected or a new thing. One of the foundations of our program is to compete within the strike zone. The biggest key to that is we’ve been playing good defense.”
Destrehan’s sterling 2.038 team ERA reflects just how good Muller (7-4, 1.89 ERA, 40 Ks, 63 IP), Marcotte (5-3, 1.174 ERA, 35 Ks, 53.2 IP), and Mire (9-0, 3 saves, 2.06 ERA, 51Ks, 57.2 IP) have been this season. Fairleigh (4-1, 2.39 ERA, 21 Ks, 29.1 IP) and Dugas (0-3, 4 saves, 4.04 ERA, 16 Ks, 17.1 IP) have been solid out of the bullpen.
Marcotte is one of four players batting above .300 with a team-best .358 average and .708 slugging percentage. His eight home runs are tops for a team that’s hit 18 for the season, to go with 16 doubles and 36 RBIs – both team highs – and seven stolen bases.
Sloan and Bryson Gabler have .333 batting averages, with Sloan collecting three doubles and 11 RBIs. Lucas is the team’s top base stealer with 26 steals, three doubles, 21 runs scored, and 13 RBIs, and Muller has five doubles, 14 RBIs, 16 stolen bases, and a team-best seven sacrifice bunts. Dugas is a .300 hitter with seven doubles, 23 runs scored, 19 RBIs, and 16 stolen bases.
The Wildcats have a steal rate of 86% with 179 stolen bases this season.
“We’re a high-pressure team, that’s for sure,” Mire said. “That’s at the core of what we try to do and create pressure. We do have some guys in the lineup that can bang. As a team, we’ve had the most stolen bases and home runs we’ve had in a while. We can do some different things, and that’s been the key.
“Depending on how the lineup pans out, we pride ourselves on being able to do everything,” Mire said. “All of our fast guys have to be able to bunt, slash, and hit and run,” Mire said. “We take pride in the offense finding multiple ways to beat you. It all starts with the pressure game. We pride ourselves on baserunning and executing small ball.”
Extended postseason stays have been the exception rather than the norm.
Destrehan’s been a playoff staple but had been able to get out of the first or second round in 16 of the past 19 seasons until this year’s charge to the semifinals.
The Wildcats were last in the quarterfinals in 2009, and before that ’07, and in Mire’s third season as an assistant, the team reached the ’05 state championship game, falling 8-2 against Jesuit.
“We don’t have the star power of having a Beau Jones, and some of those guys we had on that team,” Mire said in a comparison between that ’05 team and his current club. “One thing they have in common is the team was very close. It was kids who grew up playing together. It was kids who were genuinely friends and hung out. They fought like crazy for each other. That’s exactly what this group reminds me of. They’re gritty. They just love one another. They play for one another.’
This year’s historic run by Destrehan has bridged the gap with the ’05 state runner-up team, that’s provided a sense of camaraderie.
Some of the players from two decades ago have taken an active role in cheering on this year’s team and urged them to become the first in school history to win a state championship.
“The exciting part is that all of those guys from 20-something years ago, this has kind of been the first team where they’re back engaged in what’s going on,” Mire said. “I’ve been hearing from a bunch of those guys. They love it, and it’s been great hearing from those guys.
“This is kind of a throwback, gritty team that doesn’t care who gets the credit,” Mire said. “They don’t care if it’s pretty. Just find a way to win, and that’s what this group is. It’s been really fun.”