By RYAN ARENA

L’Observateur

LAPLACE – It wasn’t that long ago that St. Charles was 0-1 and coach Paul Waguespack said if his team could escape a tough Comet Classic tournament slate at .500, he’d feel pretty good.

Fast forward to today, and the Comets are indeed over .500 at 10-3. And they appear to be clicking on all cylinders.

Their latest conquest came on Tuesday as they trounded visiting John Ehret, 12-2, at Comet Field.

“That wasn’t a bad team that we went against today,” said Waguespack. “Right now, we’re swinging it well and not striking out. We put it in play.

“Ground balls, ground balls, ground balls. I firmly believe, the more you hit, the more you’re going to win. And we’ve hit a bunch.”

Indeed, against the Patriots (6-7) St. Charles collected 10 hits in five innings Tuesday, and the team has now tallied 50 hits in its last four games. In three of those, SCC has scored at least 12 runs.

“That’s a bunch of hits. When you can average 12 hits a game, you’ll win a lot,” said Waguespack.

But SCC hit more than ground balls. Matt Eymard drilled a double deep into the outfield in the bottom of the third to make it 8-0.

And Grant Authement hit a high fly ball in the fourth that looked like it might drop relatively harmlessly in play — it cleared the fence for a 3-run home run to make it 11-2.

“The wind was blowing out,” said Authement. “I got my hands in on it and just lifted it up.”

Marc Picciola pitched four innings for the win. He allowed three hits and two runs on a fourth-inning home run by Ehret’s Phillip Craddock.

Nick Reine pitched the final inning, allowing no hits while walking and striking out two.

St. Charles took a 1-0 lead in the first on Brandon Becker’s bunt for an RBI single.

In the second, Shane McNeil followed up a double steal with an RBI single to make it 2-0, then Jared Keating scored on third on a balk by Ehret pitcher Mike Alexander. McNeil would later score on a wild pitch to make it 4-0.

McNeil came back in the third with a single down the left field line that scored two runs to make it 6-0.

Keating made it a 10-run game in the fourth when he scored on a balk for the second time in the game.

“Early in the season, we were having trouble with our bats, and we had to shuffle our defense,” Authement said. “We’ve just had to bear down and put the work in. That’s been the key. You’d like to go out and win every game, and sometimes it doesn’t work out the way you want, but we’ve been doing alright.”