Youth league fun continued despite coronavirus challenges

Area youth baseball and softball recreation play is winding down this summer, and despite the challenges from COVID-19, local recreation leaders were happy with the results.
Regular seasons started later than normal this year due to the uncertainty of even having them with the COVID-19 pandemic ongoing.
Still, Morgan City Recreation Director Seth Thomas said leaders felt it was a must to try to have a season.
“I couldn’t have been happier with the response that we got here,” he said.
Morgan City offered T-ball, baseball and softball, while in St. Mary Central (Berwick and Bayou Vista), T-ball and baseball were offered. The Berwick Bayou Vista Softball League was held, too.
Duane Lodrigue, who helps oversee baseball and softball in Berwick, said it was a success despite the obstacles they had to overcome to have a baseball season.
Lodrigue said they "could have walked away and not played like a lot of other municipalities in the state did, but we chose not to and wanted to give the kids an opportunity to have some type of season this year,” he said.
The same can be said for softball in Berwick-Bayou Vista.
“Whereas a lot of sanctioned leagues did not have them, again, Berwick stepped up and made sure that the kids had something,” Lodrigue said.
While area leagues had to balance having a season with player safety, Thomas said he knew of only one positive test among players in Morgan City. He said he didn’t think there was any type of spread, because that player already had been quarantined out of precaution due to a family member having the illness, and then the player contracted the virus. The player came after being cleared to play, Thomas said
Thomas said that if players didn’t feel good, they didn’t come to games, or if someone was exposed, their parents informed the recreation department, who would call the individual team members so parents could monitor their children for symptoms.
“We had to do that a few times, but everybody’s been very cooperative,” he said.
Lodrigue said there were no known softball or baseball players in the leagues he oversees that had the virus.
Baseball, softball and T-ball will conclude next week in Morgan City, while across the Atchafalaya River, Lodrigue said baseball ended a week earlier than planned after the parish closed the parks the league uses at the Bayou Vista Community Center following Gov. John Bel Edwards’ required mask mandate. He said softball, which plays its games at the Town of Berwick fields, will conclude their season this week.
No area teams will compete in all-star play this season.
“There’s no champion. There’s no all-stars. They just wanted to play, and they have been,” Thomas said.