Community celebrates LSUS baseball’s historic, perfect season

SHREVEPORT, LA (KTAL/KMSS)— It was a huge turnout on Monday for the Perfect Pilots, celebrating the national champions and 59-0 LSUS baseball team.

Coaches and players have been blown away by the support from the community, not just on Monday, but spanning from the very beginning of this historic season. 

“You’re trying to wrap your head around everything that they’ve done and that kind of puts it in perspective right there,” Brad Neffendorf. “For them I’m extremely happy because they deserve all the recognition and applauding and attention and everything that they’re getting.”

While the event was for the players, it was a chance for the community to also be a part of history.

“The city of Shreveport is amazing. I’m just happy that we could bring something so special like this back to Shreveport,” senior Ian Montz said. “I think these people deserve it.  This program deserves it and yeah it’s been an awesome, awesome day so far.”

The Pilots have experienced more support than they ever could have imagined.

“It’s absolutely incredible. I mean, you couldn’t ask for more support from the city to come out here today to arrive on the bus when we turned around the corner and you see all the people standing here cheering, wearing perfect gold. I mean, and to experience it, honestly, I’ll never forget,” athletic director Lucas Morgan said.

The gravity of what the Pilots accomplished may be hard for one to comprehend simply because of how unheard of a perfect record is in all of baseball.

“I can sit here and tell you I know how unbelievable it is, but I truly can’t put in perspective yet what they’ve done,” Neffendorf said.

Even the Pilots could hardly believe what was going on as the season went on.

“Once we got to like 20-0, 30-0, we were like can we go undefeated?” Montz said.

LSUS’s success has been recognized locally, but also on a national level as well.

“Teams may go undefeated again, but not in a sport that requires you to play 50 or more games, 59-0 in a single season,” sports broadcaster and Shreveport native Tim Brando said. “We’re talking in football, Bud Wilkinson had that great run post World War II, you know, 40, 50 wins over a period of years. You don’t do that. The sport that is the most difficult to achieve perfection is baseball.”

Regardless of what happens in the future, the new record will be hard to touch, and Shreveport will always remember what LSUS has brought to the city.