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The Kaplan Pirates had no trouble on offense, winning big over Westgate 10-2 on Saturday.
The win improved Kaplan to 3-1 in district and 10-11 overall.
KHS has seven games left to play.
On Tuesday on the road, the Kaplan Pirates played Crowley. It was a big game because Kaplan is 3-1 in the district, and Crowley was 4-0.
A win by Kaplan could put the Pirates in a two-way tie for first with Crowley.
Kaplan head coach Tyler Domingue said, “We are preaching every game matters at this point for the playoffs. A district championship goes hand in hand with that.”
Going into Tuesday’s game, Kaplan was at No. 22 in power rankings in Class 3A.
On Saturday, the Pirates got on the board in the first inning. Caden Campisi singled on a 2-1 count, scoring one run.
The Pirates pulled away for good with one run in the third inning. In the third Reece Hardee’s sac fly scored one run for the Pirates.
The Pirates scored five runs in the fifth inning. The big inning was thanks to a single by Bronson Simon, a fielder’s choice by Brett Guidry, and a double by Peyton Ford.
Ford took the win for the Pirates. The pitcher surrendered two runs on five hits over seven innings, striking out 12 and walking zero.
The Pirates scattered eight hits in the game. Guidry and Ford each managed two hits for the Pirates.
Other Pirates with hits were Campisi, Simon, Landon Berryhill and Landon Cheek.
Kaplan beat St. Martinville 13-2 last week. Pitcher Grant Campbell got the win.

After falling behind 4-0 after three innings, the Lady Bobcats of Erath stormed back and scored nine runs in the final four innings en route to a 9-8 win over Patterson.
Heading into the top of the sixth frame, Erath was down 8-4. But the Lady Bobcats’ bats exploded and Erath scored five runs to make it a 9-8 game with one more inning to play.
Big hits for EHS in the top of the sixth frame were by Aubrey Desormeaux, Reigh Landry and a double by Courtney Dubois.
Landry finished the game with three hits, including two doubles and a home run.
Dubois had a double and a home run.
Desormeaux had two hits and one was for a triple.
Erath used two pitchers. Alyssa Boutte threw the first three innings and Landry fired the final four.
The two pitchers gave up five hits.
With the win, EHS improves to 11-13 overall and is ranked at No. 20 in the latest Class 3A power ranking.

By Samantha Beekman
LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE – In the four months since the first vaccination against COVID-19 in Louisiana, over two million doses of the vaccines have been administered across the state, the Louisiana Department of Health reported Monday.
Over one in four Louisianans have received at least one dose of the vaccine, and about 17.9% are considered fully vaccinated.
Praise for the vaccine accompanies vaccine selfies and pictures of vaccination cards on social media, and many are encouraging others to get the vaccine as well. “Everyone should go out and get this done!” Thomas G. Voss, Ph.D., posted on Twitter in the week leading up to this milestone. “The life you save could be your own.”
Friday, LSU football fan Zach Rau posted, “If you’re on the fence about vaccination, consider what joys await you in the fall at the tailgate.”
Despite these gains, Louisiana ranks 45th in the nation in the percentage of its population that has received at least one dose of the vaccine, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released Sunday. New data from the LSU Public Policy Research Lab could help explain why the state is behind.
According to a survey that the lab released Thursday, a third of Louisiana adults said that they would refuse a vaccine against COVID-19. This figure includes 43% of Republicans who do not intend to receive the vaccine even when they are eligible. They are joined by only 13% of Democrats who do not want the vaccine.
This reticence comes even as health care experts herald the vaccine as the key to ending the pandemic and reopen the economy. In a press conference Tuesday, Gov. Edwards said that one of the best strategies to “win the race” is vaccination in conjunction with masking and social distancing.
While state and national officials have been concerned with racial inequity in vaccine administration among people in minority communities, survey data suggests that mistrust of the vaccine does not fully explain the slow start in equitable vaccination.
In the LSU survey, half of the Black residents who were interviewed reported that they intended to get the vaccine when they can, compared to only 38% of white residents.
Still, Black leaders have suggested that access to the internet and appointments remains a barrier to the vaccine for people of color.
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris both received the vaccine on live television in December in an attempt to increase public confidence. Former President Donald Trump endorsed the vaccine in March, saying “It is a safe vaccine and it is something that works.” He and former first lady, Melania Trump, received the vaccine in private before leaving office.
Health experts warn about another possible wave of infections if vaccines are not administered widely enough. Dr. Fauci, the chief medical advisor to President Biden and the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said: “It’s a race between getting people vaccinated and preventing the surge of cases.”
While some remain hesitant to get the vaccine, the survey also reports that 74% of Louisianans agreed that “requiring people to wear masks in public places is important to reduce the spread of COVID-19. This could be due in part to the fact that 79% of those surveyed know someone who has tested positive, and nearly half know someone personally who died of COVID-19.
Starting Monday, March 29, all Louisianans aged 16 and older were eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, joining Alaska, Mississippi, West Virginia, Arizona, and Texas who had already announced similar policies. The change came months ahead of President Biden’s goal of nationwide adult eligibility by the beginning of May.
At the beginning of March, Gov. Edwards announced the state’s move to Phase 3, easing capacity restrictions on most businesses, opening bars in all parishes at 25% capacity, and continuing the mask mandate, which has been in place since last July.
Dr. Joe Kanter, state health officer for the Louisiana Department of Health, said, “Every Louisianan 16 years of age and up has the opportunity to protect themselves and their family through vaccination and bring back the Louisiana we know and love. Let’s not waste a minute.”

By David Jacobs |
The Center Square

(The Center Square) – The Louisiana Workforce Commission may have paid more than $405 million last year in unemployment benefits to people who were not eligible based on their income, according to the Louisiana Legislative Auditor.
The flood of applicants during the COVID-19 pandemic and legislation that gave employers extra time to submit their wage reports made it harder to verify applicants' reported income, the Workforce Commission said.
The LLA analyzed wages employers reported from January 2020 through last September. During that time, the LWC paid out almost $6.9 billion in state and federal benefits to more than 694,000 people.
The LLA said it identified 97,585 people who received benefits despite being employed for all three months of a quarter. They received a total of almost $405.4 million.
The increase in the number of applications for unemployment benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic led to a backlog of documentation from former and/or current employers of applicants, causing delays in LWC’s ability to work through the documentation, the Workforce Commission said. Between March 21 and April 18 of last year, almost 440,000 new unemployment claims were filed, compared with almost 104,000 during all of 2019.
Act 243 of last year’s regular session delayed employers’ quarterly reporting of employee wages for the second quarter from July 31, 2020, to September 15, 2020, limiting LWC’s ability to verify unemployment benefit eligibility, officials said. Major identity theft schemes seeking to take advantage of federal pandemic-specific benefits programs caused the LWC to turn its attention away from other types of fraud, officials said.
The LWC is continuing its efforts to investigate potential overpayments and determine whether applicants committed deliberate fraud or unintentionally understated their wages while estimating earnings. Applicants who committed deliberate fraud are subject to an additional 25% penalty on top of repayment.
“My administration continues to work diligently to detect and investigate potential unreported earnings fraud,” LWC Secretary Ava Dejoie wrote in her response to the report.