By RYAN ARENA

Sports Editor

So, which softball team really is the best in St. John Parish?

The on-field answer so far has been — it’s a stalemate.    

A little over a month after SCC fell in its own tournament to the visiting Rebels, the Comets returned the favor. Courtney Western’s no-hitter propelled St. Charles to a 7-0 victory in six innings at Riverside’s tournament this past Saturday, giving the former district foes a split to finish the season.

Western struggled with her control early, but recovered in time to pitch a gem. She struck out six and retired 10 out of the last 11 batters she faced.

“I was able to hit all my spots, and I knew I had a good defense behind me,” said Western. “That gave me confidence.”

The win over the Rebels (18-10) was the second of the day for St. Charles (20-5), which had defeated South Beauregard earlier, 3-1.

“Today, we won two games over quality teams. I’ll take that any day of the week,” said St. Charles Coach Ty Monica.

Riverside Coach Mickey Roussel said that the Rebel bats, which had been hot throughout District 10-2A play until recently, must get back on track.

“(Freshman pitcher Ashley Duhe) battled,” he said. “But it doesn’t matter how we pitch if we can’t get a hit.”

Duhe, along with fellow freshman starter Chelsey Stein, are anchoring the Riverside (rotation as regular starter Heidi Garcich recovers from an ankle sprain.

But it was Garcich’s bat the team might have missed most of all, particularly after falling behind 3-0 after an inning. St. Charles got on the board first via a Katie Reine RBI double. Ashley Trosclair would follow that by reaching on a Rebels error that allowed two more Comet runs to score.

RBIs by Trosclair and Brooke Becker in the third made it 5-0. Trosclair knocked in another in the sixth to make it 6-0. And later in the inning, Megan Musacchia was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded, allowing St. Charles’ final run to cross the plate.

“They hit, and we made a couple mistakes early on,” said Roussel. “You can’t do that when you’re up against a good pitcher. (Western) kept us off balance.”

Shortly after retiring Riverside’s Bridget Petit for the game’s final out, Western said that she and her team had some incentive to get the job done.

“After losing to them in the first game, we had the mentality that we wanted to win badly today,” said Western. “We were able to pull through.”