By JOHNNY PEPPO

Sports Editor

LUTCHER — Lutcher’s Imperial Sugar squad piled it on the Riverside Rebels Thursday afternoon at the Bulldog’s home field in the third and final match-up of the two American Legion North teams in Division II with a 13-3 win through six innings of play.

Imperial Sugar started out fast with a four-run second inning to take an early 4-1 lead. Riverside starter Donny Terrio recovered to retire the side in the bottom of the third, giving the Rebels a chance to make their push in the top of the fourth. There, Donny Terrio and Timmy Teague opened the inning and reached base bringing Keith Guidry to the plate. Guidry lined to left field allowing Terrio to score, but Teague was thrown out at home and the Rebs moved into a 4-2 deficit. The Lutcher squad brought in reliever Cory Poche after Blaise Steib reached base, and Riverside executed a double steal to put runners in scoring postion. First baseman Jamie Simon took Poche to a full count before reaching base on ball four to load the bases with the go-ahead run. But Poche got the Rebel’s next batter to ground out to third base to end the threat. In their half of the inning, the Lutcher squad managed to push in a run and got another batter into scoring position. But Terrio got out of the fourth with a quick pick-off at second base and went into the fifth with a 5-2 score in favor of the home team.

Riverside had trouble getting anything going in the top of the side and turned the batter’s box over to Lutcher in just three batters. Then Imperial Sugar poured it on.

A six-run burst in the bottom of the fifth that went through nearly the entire order of the LHS team put them way out ahead. Imperial Sugar recorded four hits and took advantage of a fielding error by the Rebels to

take an 11-2 lead. On their turn in the fifth, Riverside tried to keep it respectable by starting out with a walk and a single to center field by Guidry and Steib to start a push. Catcher Cory Keller came up and hit a sharp one to shortstop that was bobbled allowing Guidry to score. But that was all that the Rebels could muster for the inning and Imperial Sugar picked things right back up in the bottom half and ended the game with two runs to enact the mercy rule.

Despite the loss, Riverside has momentum going into the home stretch of the schedule. After a make-up game set for Friday in Reserve against Thibodaux, the Rebels are set to close out the season with an away game in Assumption and another home game against Thibodaux. The Swampland baseball playoffs are set for July 1.