A.J. Ellender baseball returns to home field, three years after losing it in Hurricane Ida
Many people across Louisiana lost something when Hurricane Ida hit in August of 2021, and the baseball team at A.J. Ellender Memorial High School was no different.
"All my players, the students at Ellender, faculty, and even my family all lost something to the storm in one way or another," said head coach Jamie Delahoussaye.
But for Delahoussaye and his team, they lost something else: baseball. The Patriots' home field was completely destroyed. The backstop was mangled beyond recognition, the batting cages completely collapsed, and the first base dugout was ripped out of the ground and taken away by the storm. However, Ellender played on. With its own field unavailable, the team played all of its "home" games for the 2022 and 2023 seasons at Southdown Elementary.
"The district decided that we would share the Southdown Elementary field with Terrebonne High School," Delahoussaye said. "I want to thank Terrebonne for allowing us to play there and being accommodating."
"It was definitely difficult to have my guys drive from the east side of Houma to practice at 8:00 in the morning, leave practice about 10:00, and then report to school for 12:30," Delahoussaye said. "But my guys pushed through and overcame all the adversity."
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And overcome the adversity they did. Ellender made the playoffs in 2022 and narrowly missed in 2023, but even after that success, no player on the 2024 roster had played a home game before this season.
"It was really hard not having a home field, always being on the road," said third baseman Joel Gaona, one of two seniors on the team.
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On a sunny February afternoon, for the first time in nearly three years, the Patriots finally returned home. By the time sophomore Dakota Porche took the mound for Ellender against Franklin on Tuesday, Ida — and the years on the road — had officially become a thing of the past.
The Patriots won via the five-inning run rule, 10-0, with Porche pitching a complete-game shutout and collecting the first hit at Ellender since 2021. But the loudest cheer of the afternoon came between innings, when a statement from Delahoussaye was read from the press box triumphantly announcing "We are home."
"It's so much different," said shortstop Michael Marcel, the other senior on roster. "There, we still showed up and we were working. But at home, it's a different atmosphere. I love it here."
This article originally appeared on The Courier: A.J. Ellender baseball returns to home field after three years due to Ida
