By RYAN ARENA
L’Observateur

For St. Charles, the start of summer baseball may represent a way to put the Comets recent heartbreak behind them. It was only two weeks ago that St. Charles was denied a state championship by the slimmest of margins in a 4-3 loss to Parkview Baptist.

Now, in American Legion play, the Comets can get back on the horse under the Townsend Homes banner.

Their summer opener at Hahnville Monday will be their first work as a full team since the final play of the Class 3A title game.

“It’s been a long prep season, and once we were finished, it was onto football and our spring game,” said SCC coach Paul Waguespack. “We gave them off for the most part this week. But we’re going use our games to get ready. Hopefully, we’ll play well enough Monday to get the win.”

The Comets-based legion team must contend with teams based from Destrehan, Hahnville, Helen Cox and East Jefferson within the American Legion Second District West Division. Teams must finish in the top four of its division to qualify for the district playoff and from there it’s double-elimination, with the top two teams advancing to the Southwest Regional.

Townsend Homes has made it within one victory of that Southwest Regional in each of the last two seasons. But on both occasions, Hahnville dealt the eliminating blow.

“We’d like to make it, and take the next step,” said Waguespack. “We’ve come up short, and we have no excuses – we’ve been beaten every time.

“We do know we can play with these teams, though.”

But while he hopes for summer success, preparing for next season – at least in Townsend’s 12 regular season Legion games – is the coach’s big focus.

Ace lefthander Jared Keating won’t get a heavy workload, Waguespack says. Nor will righty Brandon Becker, who went 7-0 this prep season – the coach says he knows what he has in them, and wants to get a look at some of his other arms – such as Henri Faucheux, Nick Reine and Cody McMurray – that comprise a deep rotation.

That also includes righthander Marc Picciola, who had a strong junior season but missed a lot of time on the mound while rehabbing a knee injury.

Picciola will also be sliding into the shortstop position vacated by departing senior Alex Marse. Shane McNeil will take Picciola’s spot at second.

East St. John, Riverside, and West St. John will also all be playing summer ball, though not within American Legion.

The Wildcats-based summer team will be known as Wildcat Baseball for the second straight season, and Coach Ryan Sims’ team became much younger with the departure of several key seniors, including standout infielders Donald Goff and Justin Howard.

That means the gametime experience in summer ball takes on an elevated meaning with so much youth on the field.

“We’ve basically got a whole new team coming in,” said Sims. “We want to see what our young guys have, and they’ll get some playing time here.”

Sims addressed developing a pitching staff as his team’s top priority in the upcoming weeks.

“Pitching is always the key for us,” Sims said. “We’re going to go out and try to develop some new pitchers for our club. Its just something we need to do for us to get ourselves rolling.”

Andre Simmons and Shane Nicholson are two of the Wildcats top returning hitters, and each will have a chance to take a lead role during the summer months.

Ditto for pitcher Lionel Weston, who Sims hopes will develop an ace for the team.

Wildcat baseball will play West St. John’s summer league team this Wednesday – the game will mark the Rams’ first summer game since 1990.

The reason for the return, says WSJ coach Lennix Madere, is that the Rams now have a core group of players dedicated to extending their work into the summer.

“We’ve got some boys who want to play summer ball, and that hasn’t always been the case,” said Madere. “We have a number of players, including some eighth graders, who have been playing since they were little, and never gave it up.

“Before, we might have four or five guys who wanted to play summer baseball. Now, we’ve got about 15.”

The Rams lose only one senior from this past season’s playoff squad, and Madere believes an extra 10 games of game action will give his team the headstart it hasn’t had in previous seasons.

“If we don’t play, I really don’t see my team together again until January,” said Madere.

“Now, we can keep it going, keep it fresh in our minds, and improve on some areas.”

Those areas Madere wants to see improved come in the pitching and defensive areas – with returning players like Barry Hanson, Dray Joseph and Quincy Green, swinging the bat hasn’t been an issue for WSJ.

The occasional inability to finishing off opponents is another issue Madere will focus on improving.

“Not maintaining focus hurt us last year,” he said.

Riverside won’t be playing Legion ball in 2009, after playing in each of coach Britt Waguespack’s first two seasons at the school.

The Rebels, like the Rams, lose only one senior, so they too will be adding another flurry of games of experience to largely the same team that played its best baseball down the stretch of the season, including upsets of No. 8 John Curtis and No. 9 Loyola.

Riverside’s top returning players include pitcher and second baseman Dylan Martin, pitcher Bryant Tassin, and catcher Jake Roussel.