By RYAN ARENA

L’Observateur

LAPLACE — The Second District playoffs will be upon us this coming week.

But for St. Charles Catholic-based Townsend Homes to have hopes of advancing to the Southeast Regional, coach Paul Waguespack said things must turn around in a hurry.

Townsend fell to Hahnville-based Otto Candies Wednesday, 10-0, at Comet Field in five innings. The game ended because of the 10-run rule.

It was Otto Candies’ second win over Townsend Homes (6-7), after a 2-1 victory in their first encounter on June 22.

Otto Candies (14-7) opened things up in the fourth inning, scoring six runs on seven hits to extend a 4-0 lead to 10-0.

In all, Otto Candies collected 14 hits, while pitcher Tyler Lamers allowed just four. Lamers struck out four and walked just one in a shutout performance.

“They had 14 hits today, and we haven’t had that collectively in our last four games,” said Waguespack. “It’s the end of the summer, but I don’t care. I just don’t think we’re a very good baseball team right now. And there’s a lot that we’ve got to fix.”

Cody Farrell pushed a 1-0 Otto Candies lead to 3-0 in the third inning when he doubled home two runners — Travis Faucheux and Tyler Simmons doubled and singled to lead off the inning.

Mike Ford doubled to put runners at second and third, then Lamers grounded out, but plated a run to make it 4-0.

Singled by Dylan Keller and Mark Abate put runners on with one out in the fourth. Simmons’ doubled to left to score Otto Candies’ fifth run. Farrell walked, and a Ford sacrifice fly made it 6-0. Four straight RBI singles — by Lamers, Easton Melancon, Ty Cologne and Keller — but things completely out of reach.

Townsend Homes’ Mason Bordelon took the loss, going 3.2 innings and allowing eight runs.

“We haven’t been scoring a bunch of runs,” said Otto Candies coach David Baudry. “We’ve been working hard at correcting that and having good at-bats. Today, we did that.”

He also praised the job Lamers did on the mound, and the defense behind him.

“He’s pitched great all summer. His ERA is right about at 1,” said Baudry. “He pitched well, we played good defense. We’ve won a lot of tight games and today we got our bats going.”

Townsend’s Luke Poche, Connor Western, Austin Weber and Dylan Gillies collected SCC’s four hits.

Both teams have action remaining against Destrehan-based Valero-St. Charles, games will determine the top seed for the upcoming district playoff — the three teams are divided into one division, and the top two will advance.

Townsend is locked into the third seed. They will travel to face Valero Saturday at 11 a.m. Meanwhile, on Sunday, Otto Candies and Valero will pick up a suspended game that was tied at 4-4.

The district playoff will begin — and perhaps end — with a Thursday tripleheader. The top seed will play once Thursday while the other two teams will play twice in a round-robin tournament. The first team to lose twice is eliminated; if no team loses twice, the tourney will continue on Friday.

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