Return to Glory: Westlake emerges with first state title in 30 years
by William Weathers // GeauxPreps.com Contributor
Westlake’s baseball coach, Blake Reed, had a day to soak in his team’s state championship when he returned to work on May 16th to find a representative from a ring company waiting.
For the first time in 30 years, No. 2 Westlake will be fitted with state championship rings following their 7-2 victory over No. 1 Sterlington.
The Rams, which last defeated Vandebilt Catholic for the Class 3A state championship in 1996, emerged with a 2-1 win in the best-of-three Division III non-select series at McMurray Park in nearby Sulphur.
“We knew we had a talented group,” said Reed, who completed his 12th season at the Calcasieu Parish school. “They’ve achieved a lot, especially this senior class over the last four years.”
Westlake didn’t allow a third-place finish in District 3-3A to derail its season. Instead, it propelled them forward and featured a 7-3 win over Catholic-Baton Rouge, the eventual Division I select state champion, in the regular season finale. The Rams had to overcome a familiar obstacle to win their first state championship in three decades, having to face Sterlington, which eliminated them in each of the previous two seasons, including last year’s semifinal round.
“Anytime you get the bye in the first round, you’re kind of nervous about your guys coming out,” Reed said. “When you get to the playoffs, everybody’s got a solid ball club; it doesn’t matter what you’re seeded. You have to go into attack mode, especially in game ones. Not losing one of those gave us a different kind of edge.”
Westlake swept three straight playoff series with three shutouts and a pair of one-run victories until the state championship series.
When the Rams split their first two games with Sterlington, they turned to No. 3 starter Mason Conrad in the clinching game, who delivered a three-hit, complete-game effort.
Conrad, the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player, walked three and struck out four.
“He’s got really good stuff,” Reed said. “He’s not going to light up the radar gun, but he just pounded the zone. We’re throwing fastballs away, fastballs away, and he’s just getting ahead, and he mixed in a breaker. We just attacked, and he did a really good job of it.”
Westlake (29-9) led from the start on Hadley Hardesty’s sacrifice fly in the first, and Brody Anderson added a two-run single with two outs in the second. Cooper Cryer extended his team’s lead to 4-0 in the third.
Conrad passed his first big test on the bottom first when Sterlington loaded the bases, the last coming on an intentional walk to red-hot Austin Hill, when he got a groundout to end the threat.
LSU commitment Devyn Downs doubled in a pair of runs, drawing Sterlington to within 4-2, when Reed elected to put Hill on again, and his defense turned a double play that Hardesty began by grabbing a pop-up on a bunt attempt.
“That was really the turning point,” Reed said. “When we made that play, it kind of set in that you were going to win a state championship today. We tacked a couple of more on in the next inning. When we took the momentum back in that fourth inning, it really felt like it was our game at that point.”
Cryer made it 6-2 with a two-run single in the fifth, and the Rams added another run on Peyton Kile’s sacrifice that enabled Sawyer Vidrine to score in the sixth.
Conrad worked a perfect seventh inning, getting a groundball to Cryer at shortstop that ended it and began a long-awaited dogpile behind the pitcher’s mound.
“It felt like it took forever because everybody’s trying to take a deep breath after every pitch,” Reed said of the final inning. “When Cryer fielded it, everybody’s hands kind of went up. Even when we caught the ball, it felt like it took an hour for the umpire to signal out.”
Westlake returned five starters and eight seniors from last year’s team.
Without hesitation, Reed pointed toward his pitching stability as a key ingredient in the team’s success.
The trio of Hardesty, Brody Anderson, a first-team Class 3A selection at utility in 2025, and Conrad formed the top three of the Rams’ rotation, which paved the way for a team earned run average of 3.54.
Hardesty went 10-3 with a 1.74 ERA and 86 strikeouts in 68.2 innings, while Anderson was 8-2 with a 3.73 ERA and 40 strikeouts in 53.2 innings. Conrad was 6-1 with a 2.53 ERA and 41 strikeouts.
Reliever Sawyer Vidrine was the team’s closer out of the bullpen with a 2-1 record, six saves, and 18 strikeouts in 25.1 innings.
“That’s been our rotation since February,” Reed said. “The biggest thing for us was having that constant. Guys showed up, and for the most part, our lineup didn’t change much since the first game. A couple of pieces have kind of traded places, but for the most part, we had stability all year. There were no surprises. Guys kind of knew their role. They got comfortable.”
Westlake went 16-5 during the non-district portion of its schedule, including a three-game road sweep over Northwood of Shreveport.
The start of District 3-3A play wasn’t for the faint of heart, but it prepared Westlake for a deep playoff run after the Rams finished behind South Beauregard and St. Louis.
Westlake’s three league losses were by a total of four runs. District champion South Beauregard was swept in the semifinals against Sterlington, while St. Louis was swept by Notre Dame in the regional round in the select bracket.
“We have really good district opponents,” Reed said. “That’s the great thing about our district. It prepares you for the playoffs just about every day. Since I’ve been here, you’re talking about lots of really good baseball teams in our district. Every day, you’re going to see a quality arm.
“Every day you’re going to face hitters,” Reed said. “You’re going to face people that play sound defense. It literally prepares you every single day, and you can’t sulk about a loss, because you turn around and there’s another one waiting for you.”
Westlake bounced back from a 4-3 setback against St. Louis on April 8th with a district win over Lake Charles College Prep, followed by its biggest win to close the regular season.
The Rams, hosting one of the state’s top programs in Catholic on April 13, rallied from a three-run deficit in the first inning, taking the lead for good with a three-run third, and finished out a 7-3 victory with Conrad on the mound.
The Bears didn’t lose again and won their final eight games of the season, and claim their third consecutive Division I select state title.
“The Catholic game was a big win,” Reed said. “Anytime you get to beat them, or a team like that, it’s going to do good things for your program.”
Reed acknowledged his team may have taken its foot off the gas during its bye week, where it scrimmaged Rosepine, which ultimately lost to Catholic-New Iberia in the Division III select quarterfinals, to bridge the gap between the end of the regular season and the start of the playoffs.
“We went into coast mode a little bit,” he said. “We played in a couple of games. It’s somebody you would see in the quarters, the semis, or the finals. I think they’re in that conversation. It’s a relaxed environment. You’re there to get reps, you’re playing the game, but there’s no chips on the table for either team. You take that for what it’s worth.”
Hardesty and Johnson, a South Arkansas College commitment, paved the way in Westlake’s regional sweep of No. 15 Jena that began with a 10-0 run-rule victory in five innings.
Westlake opened its quarterfinal series with No. 7 French Settlement in a similar fashion with a 10-0 run-rule win behind Hardesty’s no-hitter – his only one of the season – with five walks and eight strikeouts. He was also one of four players with two hits, with Brody Boudreaux driving in a pair of runs, while Cryer and Conrad each had RBIs.
The Rams followed that with a 5-4 victory to move on to the semifinals for the second consecutive season, hosting No. 3 Doyle.
Hardesty’s three-hitter – which all came in the first inning – keyed his team’s 2-0 victory. His complete-game shutout included two walks and eight strikeouts, inching his team one step closer to Sulphur.
“I don’t know if we went into those games relaxed,” Reed said. “You put your opponents’ backs against the wall, and maybe you got a little extra grit out of them. They were all solid teams. All very quality baseball clubs.
Doyle, from Livingston Parish and facing elimination, didn’t go quietly and led 4-0 after two innings in the second game.
Westlake answered with two runs in each of the third and fourth innings and took a 5-4 lead during a three-run fifth inning that was triggered by a bases-loaded walk and Anderson’s two-out, two-run single.
The Rams continued to pour it on with three more runs in the sixth – highlighted by Hardesty’s two-run triple and Williams’ RBI-single – when they had to hold on for dear life.
Doyle scored once in the sixth and added four runs in the bottom of the seventh to prompt a pitching change.
Reed said Cryer, an honorable mention all-state pitching selection in 2024 who threw sparingly in relief last season, was called upon to help get the final out and send his team to the state final.
Reed moved from his shortstop position to the mound, where he pitched only two innings the entire season, and gave a clutch performance with a three-pitch sequence for the final out in a 10-9 heartstopper.
“He’s a guy that’s started for three years and a guy that we trust,” Reed said. “As I was walking out there, we made eye contact, and I said, ‘Big guy, here we go.’ He did a good job.”
Because of the novelty surrounding the school’s first trip to a state championship series in three decades, Reed sought the advice of colleagues who had previously experienced the environment.
They decided to make the six-mile trip to McMurry Park earlier in the week, where they took team pictures and watched the action of some of the lower-division teams.
“I asked them what I had to prepare for,” Reed said. “They try to give you as much advice as they can. Then they tell you there’s no real way to prepare for it. There were some games going on with the smaller schools, and to see that maybe would take the edge off for us. But it didn’t.”
Reed said he felt a sense of calm in his team’s opening game with Sterlington after they scored the game’s first run to break a scoreless tie.
“We were ecstatic,” he said. “It was one of the greatest feelings as a coach that you could ever feel.”
Hardesty pitched his team’s first 5.2 innings, and Vidrine came in for his team-high sixth save in a 5-3 win in game one with Sterlington.
“That’s his niche,” Reed said of Vidrine. “We’ve put him in some really bad situations this year, and he’s dug his way out of it. He’s really relished in that moment all year.”
Sterlington (29-9) battered Westlake’s pitching, collecting four home runs and turning the second game into a rout that resulted in a run-rule 18-7 defeat.
It stopped the Rams’ nine-game winning streak, setting the stage for a winner-take-all final game.
“You’re punched in the mouth and you kind of stagger for a second and you have to take in what’s happening,” Reed said. “By the third inning, we kind of went into conservation mode. We had a couple of guys throw for us that hadn’t thrown a varsity inning all year and did a great job. Tomorrow was another day, and we were just trying to get there. Our guys definitely felt like their backs were against the wall, and we got a little different edge about them.”
Conrad handled the majority of his team’s mid-week assignments against competitive teams to get primed for the biggest start of his career. To that point, he was best known for being the winning pitcher against Catholic-Baton Rouge, but this was a far greater opportunity that could make him legendary around town.
His exuberance was evident.
“He was actually excited,” Reed said. “I told him in the second, ‘Dude, if you want to throw seven innings today, you’re going to have to tone that down a little bit.’ He was amped up and rightfully so. The crowd was electric. Our side of the stands were packed.
“My third base coach (Ethan Logan) said we were going to have to calm him down; he was wasting energy,” Reed said. “It was kind of hard to reel him in during that moment. He did a good job. He settled in, and from then on, he was nails.”
Sterlington threatened in the first, loading the bases, when Conrad got a ground ball to end the inning.
That defensive gem fueled Westlake’s offense that scored three times over the first two innings on Hardesty’s sacrifice fly and Anderson, whose father Brent played on the 1996 state title team, who delivered a two-run single.
Hardesty turned a double play in the third after Sterlington scored twice. Conrad retired nine straight after that and didn’t allow another hit until the sixth, and allowed three in all.
The Rams’ use of their short game proved effective, as a total of five sacrifice bunts were part of the equation in the team’s victory.
Cryer was 2-for-3 with three RBIs and a walk, and Anderson also went 2-3 with two RBIs and a walk.
Grayden Ross batted .500 with a double, three RBIs and two runs in the championship series and finished the season with a .398 average, seven doubles, three homers, and 33 RBIs.
Cryer hit .400 with five RBIs and two runs in the series and wound up with a .340 average, eight doubles, and 25 RBIs. Anderson had a .375 average in the series with four walks and batted .380 with nine doubles, two triples, four homers, 30 RBIs and 14 stolen bases overall.
Kyle, the team’s top batter for the year with a .404 average with 20 RBIs and 20 stolen bases, drew five walks in the series. Hardesty added a robust .362 overall average with eight doubles. two triples, four homers, and a team-high 48 RBIs, and Williams batted .330 with seven doubles, three homers, and 33 RBIs.
“We asked guys to execute, and they did, and in some big-time spots,” Reed said. “It was very much a team effort.”