By JOHNNY PEPPO

Sports Editor

LAPLACE — With a 5-3 regional round win Monday, the Comets kept St. Charles fans in tournament mode.

Coming on the heels of the Lady Comets semi-finals loss to Menard on Saturday, the baseball team earned a berth to the 2A state tournament in Monroe set for this Friday and Saturday. They did it with clean base-running and fielding as they dispatched Dequincy from the playoffs for the second year in a row.

Steven Duhe got the start and went six and two-thirds of an inning, striking out five in the game, but finding himself in jams throughout. After recording his first strikeout to end the first inning with a runner stranded at third, Duhe walked the first batter in the second and gave up a hit to left field directly afterward. Dequincy advanced a man back to third base with no outs but the Comets ended the threat when a missed bunt led to a rundown that ended the inning.

Jordan Millet, who led SCC from the plate with a pair of RBI singles and a walk, scored the first run of the game in the bottom of the first when he pushed in Matt Eriksen, who was pinch running for Philip Sutton after he reached on a double.

Ahead 1-0, the Comets surrendered a run in the top of the third, but held on to the lead with heady play. With two men on and one away, Dequincy got one of their five hits in the game with a high hopper that made it to the outfield. One man scored, but the relay throw to the plate came ahead of the second base-runner and Sutton made the tag for the second out of the side. Duhe finished it off by getting the next batter to pop-out, stranding two more Dequincy runners.

But the tie didn’t last long as SCC gave themselves some breathing room in the bottom half. It started with a single by leadoff batter Alex Marse. Sutton followed with a sacrifice bunt to advance him and Marc Picciola hit a shot to left field for the first run. B.J. Cancienne came up and singled as well, allowing Picciola to make it 3-1. They added two more in the bottom of the fifth after Cancienne walked to put pinch runner Devin Snyder on first. Snyder stole second and made it in on Millet’s second hit of the day, which took a hop over the pitcher and up the middle. The throw to home allowed Millet to go for third base and an overthrow brought him home.

Dequincy made it tense in the top of the seventh with their last chance. They got their first man on when he was hit by a pitch and advanced to third on a pair of sacrifices. After they got the bases loaded on a pair of back-to-back walks, B.J. Cancienne came to the mound and Duhe went to first. Cancienne allowed one run to score on a passed ball, but got the very next batter to fly out to make it official.

The win puts SCC into the quarter-finals for this weekend’s tournament where they are set to face the winner of the Vidalia vs. Episcopal game.