By RYAN ARENA
L’Observateur

LAPLACE — Faced with a Southern Lab offensive line that averaged 280 pounds across the board Friday night, St. Charles wanted to limit the length of time that the Kittens could pound away with the run.

Taking a big early lead is one way to do exactly that.

The Comets led 28-0 at halftime and Erron Lewis’ 88 yard kickoff return to begin the second half all but eliminated the prospects of a Kittens’ comeback as SCC captured a 42-14 victory at home in its season opener.

The St. Charles defense intercepted four passes while Lewis and Mario Young combined to rush for over 120 yards and three touchdowns.

St. Charles coach Frank Monica was pleased with the win but hardly satisfied, noting that the Comets will have to take things up several notches entering next week’s contest with East Jefferson.

“Our front guys did a nice job of generating a pass rush and our secondary took advantage,” said Monica. “At times, we were guilty of sloppy tackling. There were some scary moments, because when they got into the open field we just couldn’t tackle them. Give them credit, they have some very skilled athletes there.’

“I thought we ran the ball fairly well and we were fortunate enough to work on a short field on a number of occasions. But we were too sloppy tonight. That goes back to practice, and we need to do a better job there.”

The Comets (1-0) led 42-0 at one point, capping their scoring with a 24-yard Young scoring run in the third quarter. Southern Lab scored twice in the fourth quarter, once on a De’Monte Lang run and another on a Derrick Tate punt return.

SCC took its first lead of the night on a 3-yard Erron Lewis run. The Comets scored three times in the second quarter: on an Austin Weber 26-yard run, a Dane Authement 47-yard reception from Weber and an 8-yard Lewis run, that score coming as a result of SCC’s two-minute offense late in the first half.

Then came Lewis’ 88-yard kickoff return to start the second half.

“We felt like we needed to come out and put one in the endzone to start the second half and really create that separation,” said Monica. “Then we got the kick return … Getting that kind of distance from them was big. We wanted to make them one dimensional, to take away the run, and that went a long way toward that.”