It was a night to call Baton Rouge the home of the 2025 Texas Collegiate League champions.
The Baton Rouge Rougarou won their first Texas Collegiate League title defeating the defending champion Victoria Generals 6-2 before a record crowd of 756 at Pete Goldsby Field.
The Rougarou became only the second Louisiana team to win the title in the 21-year history of the league. Acadiana won in 2022, but this was the first championship game ever played in Louisiana.
This has been the Summer of the Rougarou, which finished 40-11 overall — the best record in franchise history, the third best in the history of the league and the best since 2016.
“Forty wins and won the whole thing. It was a good time,” said first-year coach Stephen Klein, who took the Rougarou to new heights in his first ever season as a head coach and was named the TCL Coach of the Year this week.
Klein said he predicted before the game that, if his team led after five innings and if they scored five runs, they would come out on top. And that’s precisely what happened.
After giving up one run in the third inning, the Rougarou tied it in the bottom of the frame then added two in the fourth, one in the seventh and two in the eighth.
The Generals, who had only three hits off of four Rougarou pitchers, scored one more run in the top of the sixth, but were held to two runs with strong pitching and stellar defense. Larson Fabre got the start for Baton Rouge, giving up one run in five innings. Trent Jordan, Jimmy Johnson and Ira Austin pitched in relief.
And while the Rougarou have seen some big nights from some of its big names, on this night it was the newbies who came through in the clutch.
Bennett Clement, who joined the team about two weeks ago, had a 2-RBI double in the fourth inning, singled and scored a run in the seventh, and had the catch of the game in right field then threw to first to double off a Victoria runner.
“The key was really having faith in my teammates like they have faith in me,” Clement said. “The guys were giving some little tips and tricks. I was kind of struggling the last three or four games. I could hear the guys cheering me on and just that brotherhood, even though I haven’t been here all summer, they took me in and made it easy to perform.”
Another newbie, Jhonnatan Ferrebus, who also joined the team about two weeks ago, had two hits, two RBIs and scored a run.
Casey Artigues, who contributed significantly throughout the summer and was named to the All-TCL team, had a pair of sacrifice flies that drove in a pair of runs.
That was all fine with two-time TCL Player of the Year Josh Shelly, who was held to one hit in the game.
“It was special,” Shelly said of his third Rougarou summer. “I feel like the last two years it was more individualized and this summer we just came together as a team and it was fun.”
There was no dogpile after the game, just an exuberant race around the outfield. Both Klein and team owner Ronnie Rantz got dunked. Then, the team posed for many photos with the Haddock Trophy and cigars, wearing newly minted championship t-shirts.
Asked how he would top his beginner’s-luck win, Klein simply shrugged and said, ”Win it again I guess.”
By Lori Lyons, Rougarou Writer