RESERVE — Riverside Academy softball coach Tamra Regalo didn’t think much of it when a couple of umpires asked to see her team’s bats before Monday’s non-district game against visiting St. Amant — at first.

It’s not all that unusual for officials to check bats to make sure they’re legal, safe and in good shape, but when they pulled out a small contraption to check them, that got Regalo’s attention.

“I don’t even know what that was,” said Regalo, a former four-year player at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond now in her second season as coach of the Lady Rebels.

It was a bat compression tester, a gadget used to check if bat barrels are legal or have been tampered with. Apparently, the lower the compression of a barrel, the better the bat “performs.”

Officials from the Louisiana High School Athletic Association borrowed one from Southeastern and brought it to Reserve Monday to check the bats of the Riverside softball team after receiving “numerous” calls requesting they do so, according to LHSAA director of media relations Jacob Doyle.

“It’s not a regular occurrence, but it’s not completely rare,” Doyle said. “Usually it’s the result of a complaint or a question.”

Assistant commissioner B.J. Guzzardo, director of officials Keith Alexander and a pair of umpires conducted the tests Monday afternoon on all of the Rebels’ bats. Each was declared legal and marked in writing with the initials of the investigating umpire.

The game proceeded normally, with St. Amant taking a 16-14 victory. The teams combined for 31 hits, and the Rebels hit three home runs.

Regalo said she and her players have heard fans from the stands urging umpires to check their bats. Now, she said, she is glad they have.

“I think it’s as a compliment to our girls,” she said. “We’ve hit so many home runs this season people think we must be cheating. Now they know we’re not.”