‘It’s pretty unbelievable’: Latest feat for Calvary Baptist softball – a national championship
by William Weathers // GeauxPreps.com Contributor
The annual week-long trip for Calvary Baptist’s softball coach, Tiffany Frazier Wood, and her family has represented the start of summer since she was a toddler.
She was introduced to this laid-back way of living by her father and uncle, who made the same pilgrimage with their father to Albert Lake in Langley, Arkansas, located in the southern part of the state, to spend time in log cabins, float the lake that borders the Little Missouri River, and do some hiking.
“It’s a tradition since I was born,” Wood said. “My whole family goes.”
Wood said part of experience of getting outside of Shreveport and into the wooded area of Arkansas is the camaraderie, which until recently had plenty of discussion about softball.
That may be challenged this week after Wood, who guided Calvary to its sixth straight state softball championship, learned Wednesday that her Lady Cavaliers (37-1) were named national champions by MaxPreps.com, the first for a Louisiana team in the 15-year history of the website’s had the honor.
“We put that rule in a couple of years ago,” Wood said. “I think we’re going to have to break that a little bit at least for today.”
When Calvary concluded its season with a 5-1 victory over Parkview Baptist for the Division III select state championship, the Lady Cavaliers were MaxPreps’ top-ranked team on May 3.
Calvary had to wait 51 days until the conclusion of the season in other states.
MaxPreps released its final Top 25 rankings with Calvary leading the way, followed by No. 2 Lake Creek, Texas (40-1), No. 3 Barbers Hill, Texas (41-5), No. 4 Orange Beach, Ala. (46-1), and No. 5 South Warren, Ky. (45-0).
“It’s so exciting,” said Wood, who picked up her 400th win in the state title game. “One of my players (Baylor Bockhaus) sent it to me first before I even saw it. Another football coach at Calvary called me before I saw the video (announcing Calvary as its national champion). I called my dad (assistant coach Greg Frazier), and he was on the road to our family trip. He was crying. It’s pretty unbelievable.”
Calvary was one of seven teams with one defeat, while five others were undefeated in the final analysis.
Wood said her team worked out Wednesday morning with 11 players ticketed for travel ball tournaments in Colorado Springs, Colo., and Baton Rouge.
She made an announcement of the team’s milestone through a group text and plans to reach out to them again.
“I just wanted to let them know what an accomplishment it is,” she said. “They’re out playing and on the recruiting circuit and all of the pressures and challenges that come with that. At our end-of-the-year party (June 9), we were ranked No. 1, and we were just waiting for that final poll.
“We talked about how awesome it is to be a part of something like this,” she said. “I never dreamed this would happen. Once you start seeing the hard work, inching your way up (the rankings), and it comes closer and closer, and then reality sets in. The kids worked so hard. I hope they take a minute to appreciate what a big honor this is. Hopefully, they take a minute to let that soak in.”
Calvary was part of three other outlets that ranked the program in their final rankings.
The Lady Cavaliers were ranked No. 3 in the NFCA Coaches Top 25, No. 4 by On3/Rivals, and No. 6 by Line Drive Media.
This marked the third straight season the program finished inside a national Top 25 poll.
“Being nationally ranked really wasn’t in the thought process,” Wood said after Calvary’s back-to-back state titles in 2016 and ’17. “We moved up the Louisiana rankings and all of a sudden we were in the Top 25.”
Calvary won its first 30 games this season, including 25 run-rule victories.
The Lady Cavaliers’ vision of an undefeated season was halted April 6 in a 3-2 setback against West Monroe.
“We were ranked No. 1 in MaxPreps before our one loss to West Monroe,” Wood said. “We thought that loss would kind of take us out. We told the kids not to get discouraged. We finished with another state championship. It’s an incredible feeling.”
Wood continued finding challenges that out-of-state competition brought.
Two of the three teams the Lady Cavaliers defeated – Bullard, Texas (37-7-1) and Bentonville, Ark. (27-3) – won their respective state championships. They also defeated Bryant, Texas, in March, and Wood’s already found the headliner for her team’s 2027 schedule.
Calvary is scheduled for a neutral site encounter with Orange Beach High at 3 p.m. on April 8, 2027, at Southeastern Louisiana’s North Oak Park.
“Some of our parents and fans said how cool it would be to play Orange Beach,” Wood said. “It’s fun to play teams outside of Louisiana. It’s fun to play teams you don’t see every single year. I thought it would be fun, and I hope it becomes a great friendship.”
Calvary answered its lone setback to West Monroe with wins in its final seven games. The Lady Cavaliers had three mercy-rule wins in the postseason before facing Parkview Baptist for the second straight year in the state tournament.
Bockhaus, a sophomore, homered in the fourth inning, and Jaycee Sledge drove in two runs. The Lady Cavaliers put the game away with a three-run sixth inning.
Georgia signee Kynzee Anderson, one of the team’s two seniors, repelled a bases-loaded jam with a groundout to end the inning. She allowed three hits and struck out nine. She became the state’s winningest pitcher with 129 wins to go with 1,398 strikeouts.
Calvary became the fourth team in state history to win six straight state championships, joining Vandebilt Catholic, Linville, and Hackberry.
No school has ever won seven in a row.
Anderson (30-1, 0.61 ERA, 318 strikeouts, 3 no-hitters) was named MaxPreps’ Louisiana Player of the Year, the Class 2A Most Outstanding Player, and the state’s Miss Softball. She was 34th nationally in strikeouts and 65th in ERA.
Wood, the Class 2A Coach of the Year, was joined by four players on the all-state first team in junior Loren Sivils, freshman Brynn Robinson, Anderson, and Bockhaus. Mallory Carver, Carlie Guile, and Reese Walker – all juniors – were honorable mention choices.
Bockhaus, 31st nationally in home runs and 59th in RBIs, and one of six players with better than .400 averages from a team with a collective average of .402, averaged 10.3 runs per game and had 129 extra base hits.
She batted .486 with 21 homers and 69 RBIs followed by Robinson (.470, 3 2Bs, 30 RBIs, 13 SBs), Sivils (.462, 15 HRs, 60 RBIs), Guille (.431, 8 HRs, 34, RBIs, 28 SBs), Hallee Brook Rinaudo (.425, 17 RBIs, 19 SBs) and Walker (.425, 3 HRs, 17 RBIs, 10 SBs).
The first two state titles for Calvary were in consecutive years – 2016 and ’17 – with wins over Menard and Notre Dame.
The Lady Cavaliers were stopped in each of the next two semifinals by Menard of Alexandria before the COVID-19 worldwide pandemic halted play in 2020.
Calvary’s current state championship stretch began in Division IV against Catholic-Pointe Coupee and Opelousas Catholic and grew in competition in Division III D’Arbonne Woods (twice), Houma Christian, and Parkview Baptist.
Woods said the team grew anxious with each passing week following the end of their season.
“We were just waiting to see if we were going to hold that each week,” she said. “We were standing at No. 1 and wanted to make sure. We were waiting on that final poll, and it was just a huge sigh of relief.”
Wood has taken a keen interest in her team’s state championship rings. With the possibility that Calvary could be named national champions for the first time in school history, her creative design talents have run rampant with ideas of capturing the moment.
She doesn’t want anything too gaudy, but instead something that best depicts the team’s achievement.
“This is kind of a once-in-a-lifetime thing,” Wood said. “Who knows if we’ll get to design them again. I want it to be special, and we want it to look different than a state championship ring. When you see the ring, we want you to know that it’s something different.”