Nearly two decades ago, Sam Houston head coach Chad Hebert and Live Oak head coach Jesse Cassard’s friendship began on Glenn Cecchini’s staff at Barbe High School.

In 2006 they helped the Bucs win the Class 5A state title. Each have become successful head coaches, and along the way they shared tips and insights, checking on each other’s family and played some intense games over the years.

Cassard announced his retirement two weeks ago, so this week will be the final time the two coach against each other. And the setting will be perfect.

The No. 1 Eagles (32-6) and No. 11 Broncos (35-7) will face off in the first game of a three-game series at 5:30 p.m. Thursday for the Non-select Division I baseball championship at the state tournament in Sulphur.

“We’re really good friends,” Cassard said. “Just following Griff, his son, and I know he loves Cal, and he’s always checking on Cal, my son. We’ve been friends since we coached together, and we’ve always stayed in contact.

“At this point, both of us are going to get our kids ready to play, and whoever plays best is going to win. It’ll be a good, clean series. We both have really good teams, and we both have experience at this point in the playoffs, so it’ll be fun.”

Even after Hebert and the Broncos swept Live Oak in the quarterfinals for a second year in a row last season, they still talk strategy.

“Honestly, before the season, I had asked him, I said, ‘Hey, what’s some of the things you do for practice that we can change some things up?’” Cassard said. “And he’s sending me 15 videos at a time. Like, ‘Hey, why don’t you try this?’ So we bounce things off of each other a lot.”

Head-to-head, Hebert is 7-3 against Cassard.

“We’re both super competitive,” Hebert said. “He and I are close enough personal friends to where we realize it’s just a game and we’re going to compete hard against each other and words are going to fly and things are going to be done and said.

“At the end of the day, it’s a baseball game. It’s not going to dictate our friendship or our love that we have for each other.”

Hebert said many of the things he learned from Cassard at Barbe and two seasons as his assistant at Zachary in 2010 and 2011 have stuck with him throughout his career.

“I don’t feel like Jesse as a competitor was ever scared of anybody,” Hebert said. “When we were at Zachary, he was always overly aggressive and trying to put pressure on people to get them to fold under the pressure and make them beat themselves at times, and we kind of stuck with that model.

“(I) picked up a lot of good things in the run game from him, just things throughout the years, and he and I bounce things off each other yearly.”

After a five-year stint at Barbe as an assistant, Cassard took over the Zachary program and led the Broncos to three consecutive Class 4A state championships from 2007 to 2009. He coached Sulphur to the quarterfinals in 2017, and since 2019, Cassard has led Live Oak to a 182-59 record and has them in the final for the first time since 2014, when the Eagles lost 7-1 to Barbe.

It is the sixth and final time Cassard will take a team into the state tournament. He is retiring after 18 seasons as a head coach with a 476-120 record.

“My son, he’s a senior, and he’s going on to play college baseball,” said Cassard, who played two seasons at McNeese State. “I want to go and watch him play and just be a dad and not have to feel bad about missing my games to go watch his games and stuff like that. I’ve loved coaching. It’s been great.”

Under Hebert, the Broncos have played at the state tournament seven times since 2017. They lost a round shy in the quarterfinals in 2022, and the COVID-19 pandemic canceled the tournament in 2020. Hebert is 270-53 in seven seasons.

“I think he’s a player’s coach,” Cassard said. “He gives them some leeway to play their own way and play their own style.

“He kind of sets out a plan for them, and they really get behind him. I’ve never heard him throw a kid under the bus. He’s always got his kids back. That’s why they play like they do because they’re on their coach’s side. I think that’s the biggest thing. He’s always been a student of the game. He’s always wanted to learn more. He gets his guys playing well at the right time, and they play a really consistent brand of baseball.”