Peak Time: After two straight upsets, No. 19 Slidell continues road work in quarterfinal series
by William Weathers // GeauxPreps.com Contributor
A joyous bus ride home Saturday from Shreveport was months and miles removed from a Slidell baseball adjusting to a different landscape under first-year coach Cameron Lewis.
Lewis had put his team through its paces in the offseason, trying to push all the right buttons for a team that had plenty of promise with the return of eight starters and four pitchers.
Besides applying himself more in the weight room Lewis, an assistant at neighboring Fontainebleau High School, stressed accountability and leadership after the Tigers graduated Class 5A All-State honorable mention choice Corey Cousin, who signed with the Kansas City Royals who drafted him in the 18th round of the MLB Draft.
“We had a big culture shift,” Lewis said. “Corey Cousin getting drafted was a big deal for Slidell. He had been the face of the program for four years. We were a senior-heavy team with no leader. There was a lack of leadership all fall and that’s what we spent a lot of time working on. Getting in the weight room and trying to find a way to create leaders, create accountability and there were definitely some rough times.”
A 4-6 start to the 2025 season, one where injuries and inconsistency, created a wobbly start until a “shift” that resulted in Slidell winning 16 of its last 19 games in the regular season. The Tigers entered the Division I non-select playoffs with a No. 19 seed but have reeled off two straight series wins to reach the program’s first state quarterfinal since 2008.
Slidell (27-9) travels to No. 11 Sam Houston (31-7) for a best-of-three series beginning at 6 p.m. Friday and continues with a doubleheader at 11 a.m./1 p.m. Saturday if necessary.
“We laughed about it on the ride back,” Lewis said after the team’s sweep of No. 3 Northwood. “It seems worth it now, right? All the hard work, all the stupid accountability stuff they may not have agreed with, and now it makes sense. Now it’s starting to work.”
Slidell is the next-to-highest-seeded team besides No. 20 Sulphur still alive in the Division I bracket.
Before the season began, it was plausible to believe the Tigers could be in such a position with the return of so many veterans from a team that was 21-13 and eliminated by Chalmette, 2-1, in an opening-round series.
“I’ve been around the area for a while and have seen some great players and some good teams that have come through that have never gotten it done,” Lewis said of Slidell’s program that counts former standouts, Will and Clay Harris, along with Xavier Paul. “I don’t know what makes us different. This is a really good group, and these seniors have kind of stepped up and led the team.
“A played-led team is definitely better than a coach-led team and that’s what we have,” Lewis said. “That’s the difference. It’s a special group of guys that banded together and wanted to make history.”
Slidell battled Northshore, another Division I quarterfinal participant, to a share of the District 7-5A championship – the first for the program since 2002 – and the Tigers’ bi-district road series sweep of No. 14 Zachary was the first 2008.
“It’s a big deal,” Lewis said. “There’s a lot of excitement.”
Lewis replaced Kyle Cedatol who after one season left Slidell to become head coach at Denham Springs.
Lewis’ belief in the weight room was a driving force for a team that’s maintained an in-season training regime and has reaped the rewards from a season’s worth of gains.
“Our guys really bought into the weight room, and we got after it,” he said. “We lift heavy, and I think you’re seeing that. We’re a pretty strong team in the weight room. That’s been part of the success. Our guys are growing through the season. I know a lot of programs that lift in the off-season and not in-season. I think we’re still getting stronger physically.”
Slidell was six innings into its opener this year at Hahnville when lead-off batter Austin Buell suffered a broken hand stealing second base and missed the next 15 games. Four games later the Tigers had to deal with the loss of first baseman Brody Loupo to a slight tear in his hamstring that cost him six games.
Slidell also lost six of its first 10 games, a stretch that included two straight losses to Pearl River in a three-game series and was shut out 3-0 at defending national champion Catholic High of Baton Rouge.
“We were piecing things together,” Lewis said. “Catholic was the real turning point. We weren’t full strength and played a good team in a clean game. We had some chances to score and didn’t make it happen. It was one of those post-games where the kids realized, ‘Hey, we’re pretty good.’
“A switch kind of flipped,” Lewis said. “They started playing more cohesively. We kind of started to get to our potential. It was a turning point. Starting 4-6, nobody really saw that coming. We just played poor.”
A 16-6 win over Pine on Feb. 27 triggered an eight-game winning streak but Slidell was far from a finished product. The Tigers allowed three runs in the seventh inning in a 4-3 setback to St. Paul’s and a week later committed seven errors in a 12-8 loss against St. Thomas Aquinas.
“We knew we were pretty good,” Lewis said. “I was in the district last year at another school and knew everyone was back but two guys. Going into the season we knew we would have a chance to be pretty good and it just wasn’t happening. I don’t know what the change was.
“We weren’t whole for a while,” Lewis said. “Buell played with a broken hand for about five games just to get back earlier. The doctor cleared him, but he wasn’t swinging a bat. He just bunted.”
Slidell went two weeks without losing a game, highlighted by a 4-0 stretch in district play, until a 1-0 loss in a series opener against Northshore. They returned the favor three days later with a 7-1 victory to force a tie for the district title and atoned for their earlier loss to St. Thomas Aquinas, 4-1, to close out the regular season.
“We got on a little hot streak, and it wasn’t one person,” Lewis said. “It was everybody doing a little something different each day. We started practicing harder. You just don’t realize it when it’s happening, but losing three straight (late February) was a gut punch, wake-up call-kind of thing.”
Slidell’s 1-2 pitching tandem of Nunez Community College commitment Brayden Calamari and LSU Eunice signee Troy Green, a right-hander that’s topped out at 93 miles-per-hour, and helped pave the way in the team’s first-round playoff sweep of Zachary.
Calamari allowed four hits over six innings and struck out nine. He also drove in two of his team’s three runs with a homer in a 3-1 win and Green followed with another solid six-inning effort, allowing three hits, four walks, and striking out seven in an 8-5 victory. Junior second baseman Sergio Sotillo was 2-for-3 with 2 RBIs and senior shortstop Charles Burdett had a hit and drove in three runs.
“The Zachary series was a tough one,” Lewis said. “They’re so good and (Zachary) coach (Jacob) Fisher’s hard to coach against. That was probably the most athletic team we played all season. It was high-intensity every time they had somebody on base. They didn’t make mistakes. You have to beat them. We got two great pitching performances.”
“The Zachary series was scary, that’s such a good team,” Lewis said. “You’ll get on a bus and go anywhere for six hours and to play well is tough, but our guys did a good job of prepping, listening to the scouting report and game plan, and understanding what we were trying to do.”
That earned Slidell a six-hour trip to face Northwood which was riding a 13-game winning streak and lost at home once all season.
Green had another terrific outing with 6.2 innings of three-hit ball with 12 strikeouts and Burdett, who threw an inning in relief in both games at Zachary, had a strikeout in a 4-2 victory in the first game. Buell and Xavier Paul each had two hits and combined for three RBIs.
“I felt like Green threw one of his better games of the year,” Lewis said. “I didn’t feel like Northwood’s hitters had a shot. We executed the bunt game incredibly well. We put up a big number (four) in the second inning and applied some pressure.”
Slidell built a 4-0 lead into the fifth inning of Gm. 2 on a grand slam from Calamari who enjoyed the career highlight of his young career, along with showing grit for his team.
With Calamari’s pitch count rising and the ultimate confidence in Burdett, Lewis elected to bring in Burdett and switch Calamari to catcher when the Falcons, the visitors in the second game, staged a comeback with four runs to tie the game in the top of the seventh.
Slidell also faced the prospect of losing Calamari who was injured in a home plate collision but didn’t lose control of the ball. The play resulted in the ejection of a player from Northwood.
Lewis estimated a 30-minute delay in the game for Calamari to receive stitches and remain in the game. When the Tigers loaded the bases in the bottom half of the inning, Calamari hit his second grand slam of the game for eight RBIs and a walk-off victory.
“That was one of the weirdest games I’ve been a part of,” Lewis said. “Who else comes up with bases loaded and hits another grand slam in the same game? He pitched six scoreless innings, survived the collision at the plate, and hit two grand slams. Have a day.”
Slidell has an offense hitting just below .300 (.297) but has Green (9-2, 1.07 ERA, 134 Ks, 78.2 innings) and Calamari (4-2, 1 save, 1.02 ERA, 57 Ks, 48 innings) leading the way with a strong team of 1.62 and .144 opponent’s batting average. Sophomore Carter Bucholz (3-0, 1 save, 35 Ks, 38.1 innings) is the team’s third pitching option who hasn’t had to pitch in the postseason.
Burdett, a signee of Reid State in Evergreen, Ala., is 1-0 with a team-high six saves with 17 strikeouts in 13.1 innings.
“Our starters have been great in this back end of the season and playoffs,” Lewis said.
Calamari’s the team’s top hitter among its regulars with a .410 average, four homers, and 33 RBIs. Green is next with a .372 average, eight doubles three triples, and 21 RBIs, and Burdett (.360, 1 HR, 7 2Bs, 21 RBIs, team-high 21 stolen bases).
“We’ve got a good group at the top,” Lewis said of his lineup with Calamari hitting third followed by Green and Southern-New Orleans signee Elijah Strahan.
Sitillio hits sixth followed by senior first baseman Brody Lupo, senior outfielder/catcher Cory Rushing, and a rotation at the No. 9 hitter that can include Paul, who had three hits with a walk and hit batter against Northwood.
With back-to-back road upsets of Zachary and Northwood, Slidell relishes the opportunity to board its bus and venture to Sam Houston for a round trip of 661 miles in the postseason.
The Tigers would welcome a semifinal trip to either Barbe or Dutchtown next week followed by the state championship series in Sulphur on May 15-17.
“We joked about being road warriors,” Lewis said. “We’ll get back on the cheese wagon this week and see if we can make something happen.”