By RYAN ARENA

L’Observateur

LAPLACE — They have truly become the Boys of Summer.

The “they” in this case are Valero-St. Charles and Otto Candies, the American Legion baseball squads of Destrehan and Hahnville respectively who are off to Lafayette this weekend to compete for the Legion state championship.

Otto Candies will start things off at 9 a.m. Saturday morning as it faces Crowley at Louisiana-Lafayette’s Tige Moore Field. Valero is scheduled to face Minden at noon.

Like the Southeast Regional that the two teams emerged from to qualify last week, the state tournament will be contested under a double-elimination format. But unlike the Southeast Regional, only two of the competing eight teams will qualify to advance past state; one will be Jesuit-based Retif, which has earned an automatic bid.

The top remaining team will advance with Jesuit to compete at the Mid-South tourney, which will be held at Kirsch-Rooney Stadium in New Orleans, just as the Southeast Regional was.

Along with the aforementioned teams competing are the Peake BMW (Brother Martin), Minden, Comeaux and Hymann.

Valero (23-11) finished 3-1 at the Southeast Regional last week, its only loss coming at the hands of eventual regional champion Jesuit. It finished as the regional’s second seed.

The clinching win for Valero came over Shaw-based Refuel, a 5-2 victory keyed by a strong complete game performance by pitcher Kade Granier. It recorded a 13-3 win over LLOG (Mandeville) and an 8-6 win over Otto Candies.

Valero has won five of its last six games.

“Our team has been playing with pure joy since the middle of the summer season,” said Valero coach Marty Luquet. “That’s what’s giving us a chance to win. It’s been our intangible.”

Luquet said that an unselfishness has permeated the team in recent weeks.

“The things we’ve been harping on, they’re putting into practice. We like to say get ‘em on, get ‘em over and get ‘em in. Guys were still trying to knock people in from first, but that isn’t the job. The job is to get the man over, and everyone has started buying into that in full.”

He added that he’s been pleased with how his team has taken advantage of its speed.

“We’re a good bunting team with good team speed,” he said. “We’ve been able to put a lot of pressure on opponents, and that’s allowed us to create some pretty big innings.

Meanwhile, Otto Candies qualified after victories in each of their first two games at the Southeast Regional, a 9-4 opener over Gauthier-Amedee and a 4-3 comeback win in 12 innings over Brother Martin-based Peake BMW.

Otto Candies (19-12) fell to Retif and Valero, but their ticket to the state tourney was secure.

Coach David Baudry is no stranger to the state tourney — or beyond. Rummel’s former coach, Baudry and the Raider Legion team won the American Legion national crown in 2006, and has been to the Mid-South regional multiple times.

Otto Candies current success, he said, has been possible because of the strong efforts by the team’s pitching staff and defense.

In particular, the team’s starting pitching has carried a heavy load. Brooks Vial, Tyler Lamers and Tyler Simmons each pitched eight full innings in at least one game at the regional, with Vial doing so twice.

“It’s very important that your starters are able to go out and go for a distance,” said Baudry. “In high school, it isn’t like the pros where you’ve got middle relievers and closers. We need our starters, and to get eight innings from those guys was a big deal for us.”

Baudry said, just as he did going into the Southeast Regional, that his team must improve its hitting production at the plate.

“We can’t get by without a better effort,” he said. “I think these teams are all pretty evenly matched. So it’s about how we play, opposed to how everyone else does. We need to concern ourselves with what we do on our end.”

He said that with just two teams advancing, the pressure is on a lot faster to remain in the winner’s bracket.

Regardless of the result, he and Luquet each agree that the experience is worth its weight in gold.

“You’re playing teams with more experience in many cases, and the stakes are much higher,” said Baudry. “Teams that play some really good baseball, and it gets better the further you advance. Those types of games only help you down the road.”

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