By JOHNNY PEPPO

Sports Editor

The River Parish Hawks continued a dominating run through the Sugar Cane baseball league on Sunday, topping the Independance Athletics 15-5 at East St. John’s diamond.

The win advances the team to see the Plaquemines Dodgers, who received a forfeit from the Baton Rouge Black Sox in the first round of the playoffs and took a 6-2 win over maringouin. Hawks coach Alvin &#8220Peter” Brown says that he likes his teams chances.

&#8220We played Plaquemines earlier in the season with Josh Trosclair on the mound. We won that one by a score of six or seven to three. So we’ve done it once already. I think we’ll still be in it after next week. Then we’d see the winner of the Deluth, Mississippi vs. Slidell game. And if we can get a win in that one, we’ll be in the league’s World Series.”

Sunday’s game found the Hawks wasting little time in establishing their game plan. A home run over the centerfield wall by Rhondon Anderson, who is coinci dentally the all-time home run leader at Nicholls University, in the first opened things up quickly as the Hawks scored three.

It was the third inning where the home team did the most damage though, pushing in eight runs. First baseman Juan Watkins put his team up by a score of 10-1 late in the side after being driven in and avoiding the catcher’s tag with a delayed slide.

Defensively, the Hawks gave up very little ground. On the mound for the first four innings, pitcher Trent Marlboro kept the Athletics off-balance and allowed only a handful of runners to advance past second base. Coming on in relief, Josh Trosclair struggled a bit early, but gained control and took the save.

In all, half of the Hawks team was batting .500 or better on the day and had 16 total hits. Thauran Anderson and Wesley Loupe each went 3-for-5. Meanwhile, Ronald August went 3-for-5 from the plate and Brandon Mason was 2-for-3 with a homer.

With just one more round of the playoffs before the World Series, the Hawks are just a match away from the championship game.