On Thursday and Friday, five Vermilion Parish baseball teams met up in Kaplan for the annual Kaplan Jamboree to test the states of their games.

On Thursday, Abbeville and VC played six innings. The Eagles ending up on top 3-0.

Erath, Kaplan and NV took the field on Friday evening for three, three-inning contests.

In the the first game on Friday, the Pirates defeated NV 1-0 after moving a runner around without the benefit of a hit. A walk, sacrifice bunt and two wild pitches were enough to plate the runner.

Kaplan head coach Jason Morvant said that, with the fact that high school teams are now forced to use the deadened bats that colleges had to adopt last season, “small ball” will likely be the name of the game this season.

“It’s all about pitching, defense and timely hitting,” said Morvant. “We’re not going to bang out hits. It’s a different game this year with the new bats.”

Still, Morvant said he’s content with the state of his team thus far.

“We’re just trying to get at bats. The pitchers are just trying to see hitters,” said Morvant. “So far we’ve been playing good defense and throwing strikes and that’s what I hope for.”

In the second three-inning contest, NV and Erath went head-to-head, with the Bobcats ending up on top 2-0.

Much like in the KHS – NV game, the Bobcats moved the runners around the pads without getting a hit.

NV head coach Jeremy Trahan said his team is still getting acclimated to playing live baseball, so he has no real concerns as of yet.

“I think we’re working hard. It’s just like everybody else. I think we’ve just got to learn to hit with these new bats,” he said.

In the final game of the evening, the Pirates re-took the field to square off with the Bobcats.

The game went down to the wire, but in the final inning, the Pirates were able to mix up some timely hitting with some fortuitous bounces and (for Erath) uncharacteristic errors to score three runs before the Bobcats could record the initial out in the final inning.

Despite the miscues and the loss, Erath head coach David Jordan said he felt his team would “fine” this season.

One common theme among all of the coaches was the fact that the bats this season do not have the pop of the bats from seasons past.

“The ball is just not going to travel like it did before,” said KHS’ Morvant. “So, you’re going to have to do the little things well to score runs.”

Jordan and Trahan agreed.

“The team that wins is going to be the team that makes the least mistakes,” said Trahan. “The team that beats itself is going to be the team that loses... During the season we’re going to have to lay down bunts and make things happen.”

Jordan said, “We’re all going to be getting back to what we call small ball.

“With the new bats, we’ve got to learn to take care of the baseball. In the first game against North Vermilion, we ended up on the better side of that because they didn’t take care of the baseball. That’s going to be (key).”