Without a home, Blue Jays’ baseball has to roam

By Ron Brocato, Sports
Clarion Herald

As the legendary Clarence “Frogman” Henry lamented in his 1956 R&R hit, “Ain’t Got No Home,” Jesuit’s baseball team is singing the same tune.

John Ryan Stadium, the school’s home field for baseball and multiple other sports, will not be available for the upcoming baseball season as it wasn’t for the soccer campaign because of a heavy rainstorm that caused a nearby canal to flood the facility and badly damage the artificial turf field.

The stadium, opened in 2012 on Airline Drive in Metairie and owned by Jesuit, has flooded three times since the city of New Orleans reconfigured its drainage system in an effort to mitigate problems with flooding in an adjacent Hollygrove neighborhood.

In the interim, the Blue Jays’ baseball team will use Kirsch-Rooney (K-R) and Mike Miley stadiums, when available, for their home games, said Jesuit’s athletic director David Moreau.

The first outing will be on Feb. 20 when Jesuit hosts Terrebonne at K-R.

The multi-purpose Ryan Stadium has also served as the home field for Jesuit’s soccer, lacrosse and rugby teams.

I’m sure St. Augustine officials can commiserate with Jesuit’s inconvenience.

A Thanksgiving night fire in 2021 badly damaged the upstairs gymnasium. A large section of its bleachers and part of its roof sustained damage in the one-alarm fire, causing the basketball team to hold most of its home games at St. Mary’s Academy.

Wrapping up the winter

Holy Cross has won 21 state wrestling championships since 1945. Jesuit has won 25, Brother Martin 21, Archbishop Shaw and De La Salle two each and St. Paul’s one.

New Orleans-area Catholic schools have dominated the state’s mats for decades.

So, would someone explain to me, again, why these teams and their followers have to travel 326 miles to Bossier City to watch these schools and their athletes compete for state championships when just a handful of schools in northwest Louisiana have wrestling programs?

Just as the sport of volleyball is dominated by LHSAA schools located in the south, the overwhelming majority of wrestling programs are at schools that lie along the I-10 corridor from New Orleans to Lake Charles (not along I-20 from Shreveport to Monroe).

It is unfortunate that the LHSAA bases its choice of sites for championship events on a bid system and the capability of a bidder to adequately accommodate the participants and visitors. For most of the last two decades, Bossier City has been the winner, primarily because it has one of the few facilities capable of accommodating multiple wrestling mats on the arena floor and is still affordable.

For years, the Pontchartrain Center was the home of wrestling and volleyball state championships. But wrestling outgrew the Kenner location, and volleyball moved on to Lafayette when the center sustained storm damage to its roof from one of the many hurricanes that visited the area.

Jesuit and Shaw claimed team wrestling titles on Feb. 2. For the Blue Jays, it was their 25th and second straight in Division I.  Shaw also successfully defended its Division III title.

The star of the show was Jesuit’s 285-pound senior Spencer Lanosga, who won his third consecutive individual crown by pinning all five tournament opponents.

Of the 14 weight class individual championships,12 went to local Catholic school wrestlers in Division I, and seven more were added in Division III. Archbishop Rummel, the third-place finisher in Division II, had three finalists win titles.

A league of their own

At its annual meeting in late January, the LHSAA sanctioned girls’ wrestling as a championship, beginning with the 2024-25 school year.

Adding the sport to the calendar, brings the total of championship sports under the LHSAA umbrella to 28.

Just one principal in the 97 schools with wrestling programs voted against it.

So, girls will have a league of their own and opportunities to earn state and, possibly, national titles.

And they couldn’t wait to get started.

The sport had its debut at a recent tournament sponsored by the Louisiana High School Wrestling Coaches Association. It drew 91 participants from across the state.

But, how it will be received by all-girls’ and co-ed Catholic schools is questionable.