Brennan Breaux is about to embark on his final season of college baseball for the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns this weekend.

“We’re just ready to get it kicked off, and hopefully pick up where we left off last year,” Brennan says.

If you ask Brennan, he never thought he would still be playing college baseball in 2021.

But after transferring from LSU to UL he had to redshirt in 2018, and what he thought was his final season last year was canceled midway through due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“I could’ve already played my last game, not knowing how the NCAA was going to come back with the ruling of whether they were going to give the seniors another year of eligibility or not,” Breaux says. “Luckily, thankfully they came back with the decision to give us another year. Hopefully I’ll be able to take advantage of it.”

Brennan’s younger sister Avery completed her senior season with Cajuns volleyball in November as a Sun Belt First Team selection.

“To go out on that end is something that I can hang my hat on, to know that all the work all the hours I put in was noticed,” Avery says.

For Avery, playing volleyball in college at all seemed to be in jeopardy at one point, after fracturing her back in two places going into her senior season of high school.

“I was in a back brace, had to do months of rehab,” Avery says. “It was pretty slow, but I was able to come back for the state tournament and continue my volleyball career luckily.”

But through canceled senior seasons and career-threatening injuries, the Breaux siblings had each other to lean on.

At almost every game Brennan and Avery compete in, you can find the siblings supporting each other in the stands with their parents Brian and Michelle.

“The both of us are each others biggest fans,” Avery says. “When I was struggling in a game, I knew I could always look in the stands, and he would kind of motion to me like hey you got this so keep going. That’s meant the world to me.”

But the bond between these siblings transcends the University they represent on the front of the jerseys. It’s quite literally woven into the numbers they wear.

“April 24, 2014 our maternal grandfather passed away in a car accident,” Brennan says. “So obviously April being the fourth month, the 24th as the 24th day of the month. Those two numbers, four and 24, the more we got to talking with family members and Avery, they were special numbers to us on more fronts than that one. It’s just been a really cool symbol for the family.”

Their grandfather Jerry Meaux was an assistant basketball coach under Beryl Shipley at then-USL. He never got to see his grandchildren represent the University he coached at.

But in honor of his legacy, Brennan dons number four, Avery number 24…together representing April 24th.

“He actually played and coached in E. K. Long,” Avery says. “So to be able to play in the same gym that he coached in, it was like he was here with us.”

“I have his initials underneath my hat,” Brennan says. “So every game I look at my hat, say a little prayer, and look up to him. It’s awesome.”

Through victories and adversity, Brennan and Avery have always relied on the Breaux bond for support.

“Being as close as a family as we have, it helped us in the healing process, as well,” Brennan says. “We’re all in it together. Family’s really the only thing you got.”

Just like Avery’s final season, the Breaux family plans to be in the stands for every game during Brennan’s last chapter of UL baseball.