By RYAN ARENA

L’Observateur

LAPLACE — St. Charles Catholic’s 0-2 start to the season is a distant memory, the Comets now winners of six straight and on the verge of clinching sole possession of the District 7-3A championship.

Standing in their way is E.D. White, who is set to host the Comets on Friday night.

The Cardinals (6-3, 2-2) enter the game off of a 20-14 loss to Port Allen last week — a win would have made Friday’s game a district championship contest.

Regardless, they’ve got much to play for. E.D. White is the ninth ranked team in Class 3A in terms of power points, and a win would all but assure the Cardinals a home game in the opening round of the postseason.

St. Charles coach Frank Monica believes his team will have its hands full.

“We know they’re a big, physical football team,” said Monica. “They’re much bigger than we are along both lines. Those are the kinds of teams that give us problems. They can create some havoc along the lines.”

St. Charles (6-2, 4-0) is ranked fourth in the LSWA Class 3A poll, while E.D. White is unranked.

E.D. White’ offense is led by quarterback Benton Arceneaux and its running back tandem of Darius Charles and Thomas Legendre. The latter duo combined to rush for 74 yards last week; two weeks ago, Charles led E.D. White to a win over St. James by rushing for 132 yards and two scores on 17 carries.

“We have to find a way to make them one-dimensional,” said Monica. “We’ll need to have as many guys up in the box as possible. The biggest thing is stopping them from making four or five yards every play. We need them playing behind the chains.”

The Comets are ranked 21st in the 3A power rankings. Monica said that it is highly unlikely that, even with a win, the Comets would host an opening round playoff game.

He also said that he simply needs to see a better effort from his team than he saw on Friday night. The Comets easily captured a 41-0 victory over struggling St. James, but the coach felt his team blew too many assignments for comfort.

“We don’t want to back into he playoffs. We want to be playing well. And we didn’t feel our effort on Friday was a postseason caliber,” he said. “We were out of position at times and did some uncharacteristic things.”

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Riverside lost a pair of shootouts this year, first to South Plaquemines, then to Carver. The important thing is that the Rebels learned from them.

It’s why there was such jubilation on the field following the team’s 48-44 win at home over Newman, an exhilarating start to finish ride that saw the Rebels take the ball with less than a minute to play and drive for a go-ahead touchdown on a game-winning pass from Deuce Wallace to Von Julien.

The game was essentially an elimination game for Riverside, which would have been all but out of the postseason picture with a loss. But the win places the Rebels in strong position; a win over Clark this week at Mickey Roussel Field will likely extend the Rebels’ string of postseason appearances, with Riverside currently ranked 29th in power points in Class 2A.

Riverside will enter the game as a significant favorite. Clark enters with a 1-8 mark, its lone win coming over winless Cohen, 20-0. Clark has been shut out in its last three games, losses to South Plaquemines (48-0), Carver (58-0) and John Curtis (55-0).

“For us, it comes down to our team needing to practice and play at the level we need to be at,” said Riverside coach Bill Stubbs. “From day one, we’ve been focused on getting better each practice, each game and each week. That’s what we can control. If we take care of what we need to, then we’ll be fine on Friday night.”

Stubbs said the win over Newman was key for the confidence of his players.

“They went out on the field with the idea that they just were not gonna be denied,” said Stubbs. “We made some mistakes, but at the end of the day, we made enough plays.

“You can tell a player 100 times that he’s getting better. But until he believes it, it doesn’t do much good. Once he believes it, then that confidence in himself makes him a better player.”

The night represented a breakout game for Julien, who caught 13 passes for 213 yards. He scored all three of his touchdowns in the final 5:27 minutes of play.

Julien said after the game that Newman was selling out to stop running back Jonquial Sanders and wideout Herb McGee, illustrating a big reason why Riverside’s offense has been so tough to stop recently — it’s tough to cover everyone in such a deep offensive cast.

Riverside is averaging 47.75 points per game over its last four games. It’s lone loss in that stretch was too Carver, in a game that saw Sanders exit due to injury in the first half.

“And you’ve got to give credit to the offensive line, because all of this starts there,” said Stubbs. “Our line has been going out there with its lunch pail and hard hat every game. They give us the opportunity to get the ball to these guys … You certainly see what Deuce, Herb, Jonquial and Von can do. Then you’ve got Peyton Falgoust, a guy who runs great routes and catches the ball well. The combination of all of it is what’s made it good.”