The Belle Place Senior Boys soccer team won the Louisiana Middle School Soccer League title Saturday against Cathedral Carmel in Lafayette at Moore Park. The Belle Place Senior boys’ team was undefeated for the season with 11 wins and one tie says Belle Place soccer coach, Richard Pellerin. The cardinals’ attack was generated by Taylor Pellerin, who was the teams’ leading goal scorer, Chase Rentrop, Nick Scully, Nick Jackson, Jordan Gray, Alan Thomas, Austin Leblanc and Austin Stoltz.

Today’s win against Cathedral was truly a team effort; the Belle Place boys were behind 0-2 at the half against a much larger and physical Cathedral team. At halftime we discussed how hard we worked to make it to the final and I asked them if they would be satisfied with our performance if we went home without the title, the answer was no. Most of these players were on the team last year when we lost 2-1 in overtime against the Cathedral tigers. The main thing we did in the second half was pick up the intensity and play our type of game rather than allowing our opponent to dictate the style of play. Once we scored our first goal the boys realized they had a chance to win and were able to score two more goals in the second half to pull off an impressive 3-2 victory.

  Defensively the cardinals were quick and able to hold off its opponents attack with tough playing by Joel Boudreaux, Hunter Inzerella, Jalen Gray, Luke Kennedy, Nick Clay and Tyler Jackson. Cory LaSalle is the teams’ goalkeeper; Cory had a great season allowing 9 goals while the cardinals scored 48 times.

I am very proud of these guys and what they showed they could accomplish under pressure admitted Coach Pellerin who is in third and final year at Belle Place. Ten of these boys are eighth-graders and will be moving on to high school next year where their playing ability will contribute to the soccer programs at Westgate and NISH.