cajun little league power

Hell yeah! My wee Cajun colleagues from Lafayette, Louisiana are kicking ass in the Little League World Series.
They played their first game Saturday and fell behind to the New England champs from Maine. They were down 2-0 in the bottom of the sixth inning. (Little League games only go six innings instead of the traditional nine.) So, what happens? Three runs! In the bottom of the sixth! Cajuns win!
(Coach: “This little team is a very confident club. They never lost their composure.”)
Today was game 2. Things weren’t looking good — the boys from Owensboro, Kentucky, took a commanding 8-1 lead in the third. Did Our Heroes wilt in the face of pressure? They most certainly did not! They began to chip away at the deficit — one run in the third, two in the fourth, then four more in the fifth.
In the bottom of the sixth, Owensboro retired the first two batters. Down to their final out, Our Heroes…bunt! And reach base! And advance to third on a timely single! And…throwing error! That’s a run! Cajuns win, Cajuns win!
These guys rock. They’ve got good Cajun names like Duplantis and Toups and Romero and Bergeron. As if that weren’t enough regional cred, they’ve got a sweet old grandma they call Nama who blesses them with a quick sign of the cross on their foreheads before each victory. (It doesn’t get much more Cajun than that, friends.)
Up next for Our Heroes is the villainous Rancho Buena Vista. Their star pitcher, Kalen Pimentel, just tied a Little League World Series record by striking out 18 batters. (For those good with math, 6 innings x 3 outs per inning = the dude struck out everybody.) And that’s just his pitching arm: he’s the “Barry Bonds of Little League,” who was recently batting .756.
I know nothing of this Kalen Pimentel boy. But I assure you that on Tuesday night at 6:30 p.m. Central Daylight Time, on ESPN2, he will feel the mighty pincers of our crawfish-fueled Cajun heroes.
If not, I say check his pee for steroids.
(By the way, best part of any of these stories:
One thing the team and coaches have had to adjust to is the local cuisine. The first night the team sat down to supper, it was served what [head coach Mike] Conrad described as mashed potatoes on what looked like a waffle, all covered with a light tan gravy.
“They were all just staring at it, not one of them had a fork in his hand,” Conrad said.
Conrad said he’s been told help is on the way today, when families and other supporters travel north with boudin and cracklins. The coaches are hoping to see some Community and Mello Joy coffee coming up as well because the local java just isn’t measuring up. “Whatever this stuff is, we still haven’t figured out what it is yet,” Conrad said. “It doesn’t even wake you up.”
Trust me: a team high on boudin cannot be stopped.)
Finally, a shout-out to Buddy Guirovich, the “godfather of Lafayette Little League” and my middle-school gym teacher.