By RYAN ARENA

L’Observateur

BOUTTE – For Hahnville, it was just a case of staying the course and continuing to plug away until finally breaking through.

That applies to its District 6-5A home game on Thursday against East St. John and to its district schedule in general.

After losing a trio of district games — two of those in gutwrenching fashion — a little bit of everything went right for the Tigers in a 12-2 win over the visiting Wildcats.

“It’s nice to see us flip the script,” said Hahnville coach Kade Rogers. “It’s not like we’ve played badly. But we’ve been a little snakebitten, losing back-to-back games in the seventh inning. It’s real tough to stay in it mentally after that. But I give a lot of credit to these kids. They come in and bust their tails. At 2-3 now, we’re still in it.”

Hahnville (12-11, 2-3) led 3-1 entering the fourth inning, where it essentially and abruptly slammed the door behind a nine-run frame.

Matt Allo picked up the win. He did not allow a hit until the fourth inning. Overall he gave up two hits, walked three and worked quickly and efficiently to improve to 3-0.

“He threw strikes for us, as he’s been doing,” said Rogers.

Working against East St. John starter Daniel Franklin (2-1), Allo helped his own cause by drawing a walk to lead off the fourth. Ryne Robert doubled, and Dillon Boudreaux bunted home a Tigers’ run to make it 4-1. Tyler Cooper walked, and Mike Ford doubled home another run to make it 5-1. Jared Harrell followed with an RBI single, and Jared Veal drew a walk. Daniel Arnold dropped a single into center field to score two runs, making it 8-1 and bringing on Ashton Lewis for ESJ (9-11, 1-4) in relief.

But while Lewis would record a strikeout for the inning’s second out, a bases-loaded double by Robert scored all three runners to make it 11-1. The 12th and final HHS run of the game scored on an error before Reynaldo Young hauled in the innings final out on an impressive catch in center field.

“They did everything right, and we did everything wrong,” said East St. John coach Ryan Sims. “We’ve gotta right the ship, tighten up some kinks in the armor. Today, I just tip my hat to Hahnville. They had it, we just didn’t.”

East St. John scored in the bottom half of the inning after a single by Shane Nicholson. He’d advance to third before scoring on a sacrifice fly by Lewis. Adam Dufrene came on in relief to record the final two outs.

ESJ scored its first run when Andrew Taylor doubled home LeBaron Sylvester.

HHS scored two runs in the second inning, both aided by errors, and another in the third.

“We were hitting the ball well early. Our outs were hard outs. There’s been tremendous improvement to our approach at the plate,” Rogers said.