By Damian Juneau

Special to the American Press

KINDER – The top-seeded Kinder Yellow Jackets overcame a slow start to take a 5-0 victory over the ninth-seeded Westlake Rams to take a sweep of the nonselect Division III quarterfinal best-of-three series.

Kinder (27-7) advances to play fifth-seeded Berwick on Wednesday at 2 p.m. in the nonselect Division III semifinals at McMurry Park in Sulphur. The winner will advance to play the Doyle-South Beauregard winner in the finals on Friday.

“This is a long time coming as in 1990 I came here to build a dynasty at this school,” said Kinder head coach Rick Whittington. “It’s taking me over twenty years to come back to my hometown as we came close last year. Words cannot explain how proud I am, but we are not done until the end.”

The Rams looked to get one of the early opportunities to score in bottom of the first inning as Trey Brown and Jace Dawson reached based on a walk and single. A ground out by Jackson Hardesty ended any chance of a score.

The Yellow Jackets were able to put up four of their runs in the top of the third inning. After walks by Rams Pitcher Hadley Hardesty loaded the bases, Brayden Guillory hit a one-out double that scored Connor LaFargue and Lance LeBouef. Griffen Cooley then scored on a wild pitch, and Brayden Guillory scored the final run after Jhyren King knocked him with a single.

Westlake again had a chance to score in the fourth as they loaded the bases with one after consecutive walks and a single by Brody Boudreaux. The chance to score was stopped by Kinder on consecutive fly outs to end the inning.

Kinder looked to increase the lead in top of the fifth as the two leadoff batters reached bases on singles by Guillory and Landen Rice. Three consecutive big plays by the Westlake Rams defense stopped any chances of a score.

The Yellow Jackets final run of the game in the top of the sixth inning a sacrifice fly by LeBouef scored Landon Schmitz.

Schmitz picked up the win for Kinder as he pitched six scoreless innings and gave up only three hits, had five strike outs, and was 1 for 3 at the plate with a double. Guillory finished the game by going 3 for 4 at the plate.

“Our defense all started with our pitching throwing strikes and getting command on the strike zone,” said Whittington. “Our defense we knew would be good as we practice that all the time. I have lots of respect for Westlake for district as they played us close in district and were familiar to us.”

The Rams Hadley Hardesty picked up the loss in the game as he pitched a complete game and finished with six strikeouts. Dawson, Boudreaux, and Hardesty each had a single for the Rams.

“The last two weekends we got the big hit we needed, but we didn’t get it this weekend,” said Westlake head coach Blake Reed. “Today we had three opportunities I thought we missed out on. Kinder is an incredibly talented team and they have some really good players. They are the one seed for a reason.”