Barbe and Sam Houston have been two of the most consistent high school baseball programs in Southwest Louisiana.

Both take long win streaks into their quarterfinals series and need two wins to advance to next week’s state tournament in Sulphur.

Since the tournament moved to Sulphur in 2014, No. 1 Barbe (31-5) missed the state tournament twice and has won a state championship in three of the last four years. Barbe is on a 16-game win streak and hosts No. 8 Mandeville at 6 p.m. today in the first game of a best-of-three nonselect Division I quarterfinal series.

“I think that is the mark of our program,” Barbe head coach Glenn Cecchini said. “We are going to be very consistent. We are going to play hard and not give up.

“I am proud of our guys. They are battle-tested. We feel good about our team.”

No. 3 Sam Houston (30-4) has won in the quarterfinals five of the last six seasons. The Broncos have won 12 consecutive games and say they don’t plan any major changes when they host No. 6 Live Oak (25-11) in a best-of-three series starting at 6 p.m. today.

“I think at times people tend to overthink playoffs, try to change things and do different things and put things in specific for other teams,” Sam Houston head coach Chad Hebert said. “We don’t do that. We just stick to what we are doing. We are going to do what we do on the bases and do what we do in the batter’s box and be Sam Houston.”

The Barbe-Mandeville series will feature some of the best pitchers in the state. The Bucs’ Diego Corrales and Lawton Littleton held No. 17 Sulphur to two runs and five hits in 14 innings. Mandeville’s (27-7) Aidan Grab, a Louisiana-Lafayette commitment, struck out 10 batters in a shutout win over Neville in Game 1 last week, and Kyle Charrier pitched a no-hitter in Game 2.

“They are a good team,” Cecchini said of the Skippers. “Their pitcher is really good. He is one of the best pitchers in the state. I think he is undefeated. He is up to 92 mph with a slider, curve and (changeup).

“We are prepared for him. It is going to be a battle. Everybody is good right now. I say this all the time, but they are in our way. We respect them just like Sulphur. Sulphur was in the way of our ultimate dream and that is to win a state championship.”

The Broncos used a little bit of everything to dominate Walker in the regional round. Nik Toups and Griffin Hebert held the Wildcats scoreless. Hebert and Ashton Bultron, who returned to the lineup late in the regular season, hit home runs in the series.

“We got Griffin and Bultron back in the lineup, and that made a huge deal,” Hebert said. “Bultron is swinging it really well. He homered in the Teurlings (Catholic) exhibition game, and he homered in the Walker series.

“We just played clean baseball. We had no errors and we didn’t give up any big innings and anything that could have got out of control we limited. I think we struck out 18 and walked two or three in two games. If you throw that many strikes, you are going to be OK.”

Live Oak is the district champion out of District 5-5A that produced three top-10 teams.

“I think they are a really good team,” Hebert said. “They pitch really well and play their type of game — small ball and run the bases. They do all those things very well and they play in the toughest district in the state and they won it.”