By RYAN ARENA
L’Observateur

LAPLACE — As the softball season began this week, St. Charles Catholic has seemingly put other teams on notice: the Comets are carrying some big bats in 2014.

St. Charles earned a 12-0 victory Thursday in the opener of their annual softball tournament at SCC, following up on a 16-6 win at Covington Tuesday to begin the season 2-0. 

Thursday’s win saw the Comets charge out to a 6-0 lead in the first inning, never letting the Yellow Jackets seriously threaten from there.

Eight Comets reached base in that opening frame, with Emily Triche, Destiny Wesley, Jessica Mire and Sarah Louque all delivering hits, Wesley’s a double. 

“Our focus is there,” said Wesley, who doubled in each of her first two at-bats. “We’ve got a really strong lineup and we’re all working hard. I’m really excited to start the season. We came out and got a couple of wins, and now we’ve gotta get that next one Saturday.”

SCC will face Hannan at 10 a.m. Saturday, then the Comets will face St. James at 4 p.m. 

The Comets added a seventh run in the second inning on a Wesley and Paige Williams double steal that followed Wesley’s leadoff double. RBI singles by Danielle Rankin, Kaitlyn Lowry and Brittany Lambert pushed the lead to 10-0 after two.

A Morgan Nobile leadoff single in the third led to a run on a Haynes error, then Kali St. Martin drove in Alexis Shirer, who scored after a leadoff double in the fourth.

Eighth grader Taylor Miller moved to 2-0 after starting and tossing three one-hit, scoreless innings. Lambert and Kaitlyn Boudreaux came on in relief, each throwing a scoreless inning. 

The Comets collected 13 hits Thursday and 16 against Covington.

“We’re getting a lot of people on base, and any time you can do that you’re putting a ton of pressure on them defensively,” said St. Charles coach Ty Monica. “That allows you options, a chance to move runners over … It’s been a pretty good start in that regard.”

Pitching was the question mark coming into the season for SCC, as Monica has been evaluating a number of competing arms. Miller earned the start in each of the first two games.

“Our little eighth grader has done a really nice job,” said Monica of Miller. “We kinda jumped out today. Anytime you can give a young pitcher that kind of run support, it’s a big confidence boost.”

He said that while the offense has been explosive thus far, for the Comets to have the success they’re accustomed to, the defense must stay strong. 

“We’ve been doing exactly what I hoped we would,” said Monica. “We’re throwing strikes and playing some pretty good defense. We had two errors the other night … We worked through it, and today it was pretty strong all around.’

“We need to keep it up defensively. If that fathers, we’re in for a long season.”

 

 

ST. CHARLES 16, COVINGTON 6 — Destiny Wesley went 5-for-6 with four RBIs to lead the way Tuesday in a Comets rout of Covington.

Jessica Mire and Paige Williams each collected three hits on the day. Emily Triche, Morgan Nobile, Brittany Lambert and Kaitlyn Lowry each earned two hits, while Sarah Louque earned a hit and an RBI. 

Taylor Miller pitched 6.1 innings in her first career start, allowing four earned runs on eight hits. She struck out two. Ashley St. Martin finished the game, going 0.2 innings and allowing no runs on two hits.