By RYAN ARENA

L’Observateur

LAPLACE — With their playoff lives on the line, St. Charles came out with a big District 7-3A win against St. James last Tuesday night at home, 57-49. But the Comets’ task of securing a second district victory over E.D. White this season came up short on the road Friday night.

The Cardinals defeated the Comets, 53-38, in what was essentially a play-in game for SCC. The Comets finished the season at No. 33 in power rankings, just outside of the 32 team Class 3A field. A win over E.D. White, which finished sixth in power points, would have likely been enough fuel to lift SCC to a wildcard berth.

John Williams scored 17 to lead the Comets. Mike Green added nine.

Ja’Dante Frye led E.D. White with 19.

SCC led 11-5 after a quarter, but a second quarter offensive power outage allowed the Cardinals to take control. E.D. white outscored SCC 13-2 in the quarter and took a 18-13 lead into halftime. The Cardinals outscored SCC by five in each of the final two quarters.

“We just weren’t patient enough,” said SCC coach Chris Perrone. “They switched on everything defensively in the second quarter. We should have just run our offense and passed it around as long as we needed to … but the bottom line is, we just didn’t get it done. Our shot selection was not good, and give E.D. White credit … they were extremely well prepared.”

Green scored a game-high 23 to lead St. Charles past St. James.

Williams scored 17 and Trey Bartholomew added eight for the Comets (10-14, 2-8), who avenged a 45-43 loss to the Wildcats on Jan. 20.

St. Charles led 26-17 at halftime, but St. James pushed to make it a three-point game entering the fourth quarter before SCC took control and made it an eight-point final margin.

“We executed for four quarters and that made the difference,” said Perrone. “Our kids knew they had a chance at the playoffs with a win. Mike played extremely well throughout and gave us a big night. They came to play.”

Jared Wiggins led St. James with 11 points. Owen Mumphrey scored nine and D’Kwan Sandolph added eight.

Perrone said that the narrow miss of the postseason is an obvious disappointment. But he said that the Comets showed a lot of character.

“Of our 24 games, we showed up 23 times and had a chance to win. That’s a testament to the kids,” he said. “I really thought we had a chance to not only get to the playoffs, but even win a couple of playoff games. So it’s disappointing … but I think although we’re losing a strong senior class, we’ve got a good young core coming back.”