What do you do when your high school graduation is scheduled at the same time as your baseball state tournament semi-final game? You swing for the fences of course.

That's what the Dutchtown Griffins and their parents, coaches and school administrators did when faced with making a decision to try and squeeze in both.

"All year we've known that if we make it to Sulphur, we make it to the semi finals that we wouldn't be able to go to graduation, we all want it to go to graduation, but we all wanted to go to the semi finals much more," pitcher Nathan Monceaux said of the upcoming dilemma.

Set to face off against West Monroe on Thursday night in Sulphur for the LHSAA baseball tournament, the Griffins held a special graduation ceremony on Tuesday night at their home ballpark where all 13 seniors wore caps and gowns and received their diplomas.

Head Coach Chris Schexnayder said the special ceremony was cooked up early last week when they realized that both events were going down on the same night.

"Some of the senior parents asked my principal with if they could be recognized out on the field Tuesday night after awards night and my principal said no problem" said Schexnayder.

"I think it was mostly our moms, you know, they wanted to see us put that cap and gown on and get that diploma," said Griffin first-baseman Will Delaune.

The special touch for those Griffin players didn't go unnoticed as they were touched by the extra attention. 

"We were thinking that we would get a small ceremony, Coach Schex would hand us our diplomas, and we'd go home. It was really cool that they got all the administration out there and we had some speakers and we all lined up and the caps and gowns I was I thought it was very cool that we did that," said Monceaux.

Other players like Delaune had different reason for loving the specialized graduation ceremony. "I was really cool cuz I didn't have to sit through the three hour real graduation. I got a little our ceremony and it was great. It was perfect. The administration came, they took their time out and they came and supported us, and that's all I could ask for."

Dutchtown faces West Monroe on Thursday night for the 5A Semi-final game in Sulphur.