Perseverance Personified: Vermilion Catholic overcomes plenty to raise school’s state baseball trophy
by William Weathers // GeauxPreps.com Contributor
When Ben Harrington stepped away as Vermilion Catholic’s baseball coach in 2021, the thought of ever coaching again paled compared to the inherent reality of losing his wife.
Karen Harrington was diagnosed with cancer, prompting her husband to reassess his priorities which had been rooted in the game of baseball.
Ben Harrington helped his alma mater DeRidder win its lone state championship in baseball in 2003. He signed to play for coach Mitch Gaspard at Northwestern State where injuries derailed his career, leading him to McNeese State to complete both his undergraduate and postgraduate degrees.
Harrington chose to enter the teaching profession as an avenue to get into coaching, a way to stay connected to the game and influence kids. For four years, he did just that at Vermilion Catholic in Abbeville, guiding the Eagles to the Class 1A state tournament in 2016 where they fell to Oak Grove, 9-4.
“That was a special year with a great group of guys,” he said. “We got to Sulphur, and the lights were a little too bright for us. We kind of got out of our element and essentially didn’t play the way we had played all season.”
Four years later, with his wife’s diagnosis freezing him like a 3-2 curveball, Harrington did what was in the best interest of his family (they have a 5-year-old son Archie) not necessarily for his career, and cared for his wife.
“I got into education to coach baseball,” Harrington said. “That was my reason, my why, to be a coach to help young men grow into men and form a bond with those guys. When that’s kind of taken away from you, you feel like you’ve lost an appendage.”
For two years Harrington, the school’s Director of Technology and former English teacher, had plenty of time for reflection and appealed to a high power for his wife’s recovery, a testament to her own ability to battle adverse circumstances.
“It allows you to put your focus on things that really and truly matter in life,” he said. “It was a fresh perspective, not only on life, but it changes the way you perceive things. I didn’t feel like myself. When your identity’s wrapped up in something and baseball’s been who you are your whole life, and you take that out of the picture, you step back and ask, ‘Who am I? What am I doing?”
Karen Harrington has been in remission for several years now, allowing her husband to return to the game he so dearly loves. Three years after his return, Ben Harrington experienced his greatest moment in coaching, leading the No. 2 Screaming Eagles to the school’s first state championship on May 14 with a 4-1 victory in the Division IV select final over No. 12 Ouachita Christian at McMurry Park in Sulphur.
“There was so much emotion after the game,” Harrington said. “It was hard to talk.”
Vermilion Catholic, the state’s football champion in December, overcame a myriad of obstacles because of one common belief. The Eagles lost in the state regional the previous two seasons, supplying plenty of motivation for a seven-member senior class to push the Eagles across the finish line.
“Everything happens for a reason,” Harrington said. “You might not know the reason immediately, but God always shows you through time what the plan was. Those (state quarterfinal) losses were tough. We were right there; those losses were by a total of three runs. We had good teams, but we were young. All of that was to make us stronger and to build us up.”
VC (25-7) concluded the season with eight consecutive victories, knocking down challenges from District 6-1A rival Ascension Episcopal, Riverside Academy, and Ouachita Christian over the final three rounds of play.
“It’s been special,” Harrington said. “It’s hard to put into words what this season has meant to the team, but to the entire school, community, and anyone who has a hand in our season.”
Two days after the team’s state championship, Harrington and his wife attended the kindergarten graduation of their son. Life was good on so many levels, and the heart of that synergy was the health of Karen, a digital strategist for Hancock Whitney Bank.
A state championship by the football team served as a catalyst where six players from that team – Jonathan Dartez, Hudson Hebert, Jackson Trahan, Will Simon, Jacob Dubois, and Ross Dartez – were all experienced players returning to the baseball team that was eliminated last season by Riverside, 3-2.
“Whenever football starts off the year and they have that success it just pours over,” Harrington said. “It gets the community fired up. It brings a special kind of energy. It’s been my experience that whenever football has a great year, it carries over into the other sports.”
Harrington’s scheduling philosophy of lining up difficult competition continued. The Eagles, who were 8-3 against teams that were either Class 4A or 5, defeated eventual Division II select state runner-up Vandebilt Catholic, 5-3.
There was a season-opening 4-3 win over Catholic-New Iberia, the eventual Division III select state champion, which raised some eyes. The Eagles also defeated North Vermilion, a Division II non-select quarterfinalist, 4-3, and took two of three from Lafayette Christian Academy, a team that reached the Division III select regionals, by scores of 13-3 and 6-2 in February.
“The old adage is iron sharpens iron,” Harrington said. “You can’t just play lower tier and mediocre teams and expect your guys to be battle-tested at the end. We try to have a nice mix of games. I try to find quality opponents that will challenge us and make us a better team. It makes you a better team in the long run when you play high-quality opponents that are going to challenge you.”
Harrington was experienced in the art of having to deal with injuries during his career at Northwestern State.
His career was cut short by season-ending injuries – a torn UCL, followed by a torn labrum three months later – and resulted in a transfer to McNeese to complete his studies.
What took place with VC’s team, though, was more than Harrington could have imagined taking place for a group of teenagers.
The litany of injuries – some season-ending, other resulting in time away from the game – would have normally been enough to disrupt most seasons.
But not this team.
“The best word is resilient,” Harrington said. “So many different guys stepped up and filled roles and just did what needed to be done, or whatever was asked of them.”
The arrival of right fielder Hudson Hebert and pitcher Dominic Gautreaux was delayed because of injuries incurred while playing sports.
Hebert broke his hand on the final play of the state football championship game, while Gautreaux suffered a broken arm in the basketball team’s final playoff game.
Less than a month into the season VC’s team leader Jonathan Dartez, the state’s Most Outstanding Player in football, needed 22 stitches to close a wound on his leg that he sustained sliding into home at Teurlings Catholic and missed the next two weeks.
The following game VC’s projected ace, senior Ayden Beraud, complained of elbow pain in the third inning of a road game against St. Edmund. Results later revealed a nerve issue that was later corrected by surgery the day of the Eagles’ semifinal game last week.
With some of the key pieces slowly trickling back to the field of play, misfortune struck again before Good Friday. Freshman pitcher Cruz Hebert (6-0, 1 save, 3.00 earned run average, 20 strikeouts, 31.2 innings) was injured while riding a utility task vehicle (UTV), resulting in a brain bleed.
Hebert was rushed to the hospital and subsequently airlifted to a hospital in Baton Rouge where he was in ICU for six days.
“It was a scary situation because of what that kid meant to our team,” Harrington said. “He had pitched in some big-time games for us. It hurt my heart to see something like that happen to him.”
Junior pitcher Fisher Quackenbos, the team’s No. 2 starter in 2024 who was elevated to No. 2 this year following Cruz Hebert’s accident, was having difficulty rounding into form this season. It was discovered he suffered from a genetic condition that required injections to relieve pain in his knee and surgery is scheduled for the end of this summer.
“We thought about bringing a priest to our dugout,” Harrington said.
The flexibility of the team was on display through the course of a season beset by injuries. That created opportunities for such players as Caden Dehart to fill in for Jonathan Dartez at shortstop, and then at second base for Gautreaux before taking over the team’s designated hitter role.
“They stepped in and did an outstanding job for us,” Harrington said. “They did everything we asked of him and more. We knew this senior class were winners and just the class of young men they were. As a coaching staff, we knew we had a lot of really good players, a lot of players that played hard. It was our job to get them in the right seat on the bus. It takes a while to get there.”
VC’s run through the postseason was about redemption.
The first stated goal of this year’s team, the District 6-1A championship, was taken off the board when Ascension Episcopal won a best-of-three series, determined by a total of four runs, on March 20-21. The Blue Gators had also defeated the Eagles, 8-1, on March 13.
“That was one of the lower points of our season,” Harrington said. “It was a great series that came down to the wire and it’s tough when you have an opportunity for the first goal and it doesn’t happen. We’re meeting and talking and they’re celebrating with their fans and students. I told them to take all of that in and just remember this feeling you have right now.
“I told them this could go one of two ways,” Harrington said. “This loss can break us, or tear us down, or it can make us hungry and make us a better team. I told them that we were going to see them later down the road, that they were a great ballclub, but you know that you’re a better team than they are.”
VC closed fast down the stretch, winning eight of its last nine games, which included its win over Vandebilt Catholic and Erath, a Division III non-select state runner-up, and Carencro.
When VC opened playoff action on May 1 against St. Edmund, a familiar face rejoined the team.
Cruz Hebert was back in the dugout with his teammates at Sellers Field where the Eagles relied on the complete-game pitching effort of freshman Cole Albert in a 3-0 shutout.
“The emotion the guys had just to see him show up in his jersey was tremendous,” Harrington said of Hebert. “Just for him to be able to stand with us in the dugout.”
That set up a rematch with Ascension Episcopal, a regional contest that was pushed back to May 10 because of inclement weather during the week.
That meant in order to throw Albert, Harrington would not have the luxury of withholding the talented right-hander’s name from the lineup and holding him for a semifinal appearance.
“As fate had it, that’s who we drew for the game to send us to Sulphur,” Harrington said.
The lead changed hands twice when left fielder Bryce Lege’s three-run homer gave the Eagles a 6-3 victory and a trip to the state tournament.
“It was back and forth,” Harrington said. “Our kids don’t know what the word quit means.”
Harrington said the opportunity to pitch Albert in the quarterfinals was a testament to the team’s depth on the mound.
“We knew by pushing the game back to Saturday, he wouldn’t be eligible to pitch the semifinal game,” he said. “We let him throw against Ascension with the idea we’re going to have to throw our other guys to win this regardless. It all just worked out.”
Riverside, with standout pitcher Jayce Ruiz, stood in VC’s way of a first state championship appearance in 16 years and third overall.
What a memorable game it turned out to be with the Rebels twice building three-run leads until the Eagles rallied with a four-run fifth inning and two more in the sixth.
Caden DeHart’s two-run double tied the game at 6-6 and Dubois added a run-scoring double in the fifth. The Eagles had to dig down again in the sixth and Lege tied the game with at 8-all with a double with a fielding error in the outfield leading to the go-ahead score.
Gautreaux, who kept the team’s radar pitching chart, returned to action for the final game of the regular season against Carencro and was the winning pitcher in the semifinal. He pitched two innings of scoreless relief behind Quackenbos and senior Alexander Marceaux.
Gautreaux started a game-ending double play, throwing home to Dubois, who then threw Trahan at first to end the game.
“The stars aligned,” Harrington said of the team’s quarterfinal and semifinal opponents. “We were excited to draw Riverside and see them again because we knew they didn’t really graduate anybody off last year’s team. We had a good idea of who they were. We knew how good Jayce Ruiz was on the mound, who is phenomenal. These kids don’t know the word quit. There’s no off button because they don’t have one.”
VC’s state championship appearance meant the Eagles would have Albert ready to throw in the biggest game of the season. The Eagles provided Albert with a lead he would never relinquish on Trahan’s two-run homer in the first – his second of the season.
“I can’t say about Jackson Trahan and what he’s meant to this team on and off the field and in the clubhouse,” Harrington said. “To get that home run in the first inning, just set the tone for the whole game. Little did we know that’s all we would need to win.
“My message to the team before the state tournament was that we were not going to change who we are,” Harrington said. “We’re going to do what we do. The biggest thing to do was to settle into this game and get comfortable in an uncomfortable situation. The quicker you can do that the better we’re going to be. There’s no better way to settle into a game than to go 1-2-3 defensively and come out and put up a two-spot.”
VC’s steadily increased its lead on run-scoring singles from Jonathan Dartez, who was 3-for-3, in the second and Gautreaux in the fourth.
Albert took care of the rest. He wrapped up his third complete-game victory of the playoffs by allowing one run on nine hits, walked one, and struck out three.
“To have a 14-year-old kid out there, there was never any doubt about what he was going to do because he’s done it every single game this season,” Harrington said. “He leaves it all out there. Nothing ever affects him. He’s the same person from the start to the finish of a game. What he is right now is a great teammate, a great leader, and just a phenomenal player.”
Jonathan Dartez had the team’s final two assists at shortstop, leading to a euphoric meeting amongst teammates on the artificial turf infield at McMurry Park.
“The dogpile is a culmination of everything, all the hard work and everything that has gone right at that moment,” said Harrington, whose second and third objectives of the season were to win 20 games and a state championship. “It’s pure elation. There’s nothing like it in any other sport. It’s special. It’s validation. It’s the cherry on top of an outstanding season.”
Dartez led VC with a .451 batting average with 32 runs scored, two doubles, 15 RBIs, and 10 stolen bases. Trahan was the team’s other .400 hitter, scoring 38 runs, recording five doubles, two homers, and a team-high 38 RBIs. He only struck out seven times in 122 plate appearances.
The Eagles also had a productive core in their lineup with Ross Dartez (.375, 4 2Bs, 11 RBIs, 27 runs), Hudson Hebert (.373, 15 RBIs), Lege (.361, 5 2Bs, 2 homers, 28 runs, 31 RBIs, 12 stolen bases) and Simon (.332, 7 2Bs, a triple, a homer, 27 RBIs, 25 runs).
Albert was the leader of a pitching staff that had an ERA of 2.45. He wound up 8-1 with a save, 0.95 ERA, 54 strikeouts, and 18 walks in 65.2 innings. Marceaux (3-0, 3.00, 28 innings), Quackenbos (3-1, 3.00, 23 Ks, 16 walks, 37.2 innings).
The Eagles also had a strong defensive team with a .974 fielding percentage that turned 20 double plays including one to punctuate the semifinal triumph.
“This where we wanted to be,” Harrington said. “(Previous state playoff exits) It just made us stronger, made us hungrier. It showed us where we were as a program. It allowed us to make some adjustments; to really work hard in the areas we had to improve in to get to where we wanted to be.
“To come out on top after all of that is just icing on the cake,” Harrington said. “It was something special. You could not write a better story about this team.”