Tradition Doesn’t Graduate: No. 1 Kaplan back in mix for Division III non-select crown after heavy losses
by William Weathers // GeauxPreps.com Contributor
Kaplan had already wrapped up the District 5-3A championship by March 13, outscoring its opponents 57-0 in four run-rule victories.
The Lady Pirates went on to face their remaining non-district games that produced wins over Teurlings Catholic, St. Thomas More, and Ponchatoula before embarking on a two-game road trip in early April to face Natchitoches Central and Ouachita, both of whom are Division I schools.
“I looked at my schedule and said, ‘What are you thinking?’” Kaplan softball coach Brittany LeBeouf. “I told my coaching staff that I may have messed up with this.”
Kaplan delivered an affirmative response. The Lady Pirates defeated the Lady Chiefs 3-2 – the first of two one-run victories on the season – and closed with an impressive 9-1 verdict over the home-standing Lady Lions.
Kaplan won its last 21 games of the regular season on the strength of three consecutive shutouts of Sulphur, Acadiana, and Northside Christian. The No. 1 Lady Pirates (29-2) have since extended that streak to 23 games into Friday’s Division III non-select state semifinal against No. 5 Doyle (24-5) at noon at North Frasch Park in Sulphur.
“The senior leadership has been incredible,” said LeBeouf, whose team’s ranked fifth in the state by MaxPreps. “We do a lot of stuff. We went on a retreat to Orange Beach in the fall, had senior suppers. At the beginning of the year, we do an escape room with our seniors. They have a lot of input in what we do in our program.
“I’ve told them this is their team, their last shot,” LeBeouf said of her six-member senior class. “You get what you put in. They’ve done a great job of getting the younger ones to buy in. They lead by example. It’s not so much telling them what to do but showing them. That’s where they’ve had the most success.”
Kaplan was a senior-heavy team in 2024 that graduated Class 3A All-State shortstop Kennedy Marceaux, an Alabama signee, along with pitcher Briley LeBeouf and seven other players. Half of the team’s four senior starters this year had previously played, creating a challenging fall for the team to determine playing time and starting positions.
“Our fall was extremely difficult for all of them,” Coach LeBeouf said. “The weight room routine was changed. Fall practice was a lot tougher than it had been in the past.”
The loss of Marceaux, the school’s first winner of the Louisiana Gatorade Player of the Year, was tough to stomach, but a 4-3 defeat to Jena in last year’s state quarterfinals was upsetting.
Instead of this year’s team working toward a possible three-peat, the Lady Pirates won the 2023 state crown, they became motivated to be the first senior class to win two state championships in their careers.
“They have a chance to do something that’s never been done in our school history,” LeBeouf said. “All season, they’ve worked and proven everyone wrong. They’ve really bought into the system, unlike any other group I’ve seen. They trust the coaching staff and they love one another. Our team’s chemistry is really good. I feel like that’s one of the main factors that go into winning a championship.
“That loss really stung last year,” LeBeouf said of the matchup with Jena. “It made me sick, and our seniors felt the same way. They wanted to go out with a bang. Getting back to Sulphur was one of the main things we talked about. Once you get there anything can happen. They took the loss to heart, and they’ve gotten the whole team to buy in.”
Before the team’s trip to North Louisiana last month Kaplan gained a measure of clarity on its level of play with wins over Iowa (5-0) of Division II, John Curtis (4-1), a staple in Division I select, and Lutcher (3-1), the Division II non-select state champion a year ago.
The Lady Pirates experienced their first bout of hardship, though, in early March with back-to-back losses to Southside (7-6) and Sam Houston (6-0).
Southside was eliminated last week in the Division I non-select regionals at St. Amant, while Sam Houston is the top-seeded team in the same bracket and faces the Lady Gators in Friday’s state semifinals.
“That was a turning point for us,” LeBeouf said. “We said we were going to go through some adversity. I made a tough schedule. Did I think we would go 29-2? No. I thought we would have more bumps and bruises. After the Sam Houston game, our seniors laid it out on the line and said some of us were OK with losing. It’s not OK to lose and be happy with it.
“Obviously, everyone’s going to fail at some point,” LeBeouf said. “We had to learn from our mistakes and from that point on we learned what we did wrong, we understood our roles. I made each kid text me about what their role on the team was. I felt like they weren’t established. As a coach, I had to get better and establish their roles and let them know what their role was for this team.”
Kaplan’s never tasted defeat again since March 10.
During the team’s current winning streak, the Lady Pirates have flexed their muscle with 13 of their 17 run-rules victories and nine of 13 shutouts.
One of those mercy-rule wins came in a 13-2 road victory over David Thibodeaux, a team that reached the Division II select quarterfinals, while a 5-0 shutout over West Ouachita was against a team that was eliminated in the Division I non-select quarterfinals.
“Kaplan has a rich softball history,” LeBeouf said of the school’s three state titles in 2006, 2016, and ’23. “We’re one of the best programs in the state. Kids understand you work hard, and you’re disciplined, or you don’t play here. Everyone knows that at our school. Our kids are held to a higher standard than anyone else. Every kid we have works. We play with what we have, and it’s seemed to work to this point.”
The road swing at Ouachita enabled Kaplan to come away with a pair of wins in two competitive games. The Lady Pirates were tied going into the seventh inning before scoring a run and getting out of a predicament when the Lady Chiefs had runners in scoring position to prevail.
“We didn’t play the greatest that weekend, but we got the job done,” LeBeouf said. “Against Natchitoches Central, we pulled through and we needed a game like that. We needed a game where we weren’t winning by six runs. We needed to feel that pressure.”
Kaplan returned home three days later and recorded a 6-5 win over Assumption, a 29-5 team heading into its Division II non-select semifinal on Friday against Brusly.
The Lady Pirates picked up their 17th mercy-rule win (11-1) against Berwick in the second round of the playoffs before outlasting No. 8 French Settlement, 10-6, and its standout pitcher Malloy Miles.
“We’re going to be prepared,” LeBeouf said. “I would put the girl from French Settlement up in the top three arms in the state. We put up 10 runs on one of the best arms in the state. Our staff did an amazing job of scouting, preparing our kids to make decisions. We’ll be ready to go for Doyle.”
LeBeouf wanted to make one thing perfectly clear in assembling this year’s team.
“She’s not replaceable,” she said of Marceaux. “She’s a generational player, one that every coach dreams of coaching. I don’t think the kids were trying to replace her.”
Kaplan’s state tournament experience starts and stops with seniors Abby Ford and Addyson Hebert. LeBouef said there are other juniors and seniors with experience accompanying the team to the state tournament but haven’t stepped onto the playing field.
“Sulphur’s a different animal,” she said.
Kaplan’s batting .331 with 32 homers, 76 doubles, 108 stolen bases, and reduced its strikeouts over a year ago, drawing 306 walks compared to 154 strikeouts.
“I feel like we’re faster on the bases than we’ve been in the past,” LeBeouf said. “If we’re getting to second, I’m pretty sure we’re scoring most of the time with our speed. They’ve done a great job of getting on base. We have runners that help flip our lineup over and do a great job of manufacturing runs. Every kid on our team has the ability to run into a ball at any time.”
Ford is the team’s second-leading hitter with a .408 average and .796 slugging percentage. She has a team-best 16 doubles with five homers and a team-high 50 RBIs. Hebert tops the team with 10 homers, batting .338 with a .855 slugging percentage with nine doubles and 29 RBIs.
Pitcher Lexi Greene is part of the team’s youth movement with a starting lineup that features two sophomores and four freshmen.
Greene is the team’s top hitter at .485 with a .832 slugging percentage, 16 doubles, five homers, 35 RBIs, and team-high 32 stolen bases. The left-hander (29-2, 1.21 ERA, 257 strikeouts) has also been a workhorse in the circle, accounting for 167 of the team’s 180 innings pitched.
“She has put in a lot of work in the summer and fall,” LeBeouf said. “She threw a few games last year and struggled with control. She doesn’t take a day off and she’s starting to see the hard work pay off. She’s a go-getter and loves pressure situations. She’ll continue to get better.”
Senior second baseman Baleigh Landry is a next-level player still in the process of planning out her college visits. The .338 hitter has seven homers, three triples, a homer, 44 runs scored, 29 RBIs and 14 stolen bases.
“We put balls in play, we’re a scrappy team,” LeBeouf said. “We haven’t hit as many home runs as we have in the past. We’re still putting up a ton of runs and having competitive at-bats at the plate.”
Leftfielder Drew Kass, who was 2 of 4 in the team’s quarterfinal win over French Settlement, is another key senior who’s doubled four times and driven in 21 runs.
Two of the freshmen shouldering big roles this season have been designated player Emma Sherman and shortstop Liberty Greene.
Sherman has given the Lady Pirates a presence in the clean-up role with a .325 average, seven doubles, six homers, and 31 RBIs, while Liberty Greene’s helped to give the infield a solid defender and a run-producer at the plate with a .333 average, 11 doubles, three homers and 21 RBIs. Cheyenne Breaux’s another freshman starter at third base.
“Liberty’s just a competitor,” LeBeouf said. “She just wants to play softball and help her team win. However, she can do it. She puts in a lot of work. When you have girls that are competitors and they have that dog in them, you can’t teach that. She wants to win. She doesn’t like to lose, and you love to coach kids like that.
“When you have a player (Marceaux) like that, she can’t be replaced,” LeBeouf said. “This team has done a fantastic job from the beginning until now. We have two games to go and hopefully, we’ll be on the side we want to be on.”