Waguespack’s 2nd 1-hitter cements SCC win
Published 11:45 pm Tuesday, March 11, 2014
By RYAN ARENA
L’Observateur
LAPLACE — St. Charles Catholic put a bow on its trip to Monroe, capping their four game Trey Altick tournament run with a pair of victories over St. Frederick and Bastrop, 2-1 and 13-3 respectively.
Highlighting the victory over St. Frederick was another strong pitching performance by B.J. Waguespack, who tossed his second consecutive one-hitter, He struck out four and walked nobody on his way to earning the win. Waguespack has allowed just two hits and 0 earned runs over 12 innings this season.
The Comets (7-1) trailed St. Frederick (3-4) 1-0 before taking the lead for good in the fourth inning. A Connor Smith RBI single tied the game before pinch runner Patrick Ratliff scored on a passed ball for the go-ahead run.
Smith led SCC at the plate, the only Comet to log two hits on the day.
St. Charles scored 11 runs in the first inning against Bastrop (1-5) on its way to a 10-run rule win in five innings.
Dane Authement collected two hits for SCC, which subbed liberally after the early surge. Austin Weber earned the win, starting and going three innings. He allowed two hits and three runs. Zach Weber pitched the final two innings, allowing one hit and no runs.
St. Charles coach Wayne Stein said the trip up north, which has become an annual event for the baseball program, was productive both on and off the field.
“You have a chance to have everyone together on a trip, in that hotel environment, and the hope is that if you’re fortunate enough to advance to the state tournament, you can call back to this experience,” said Stein. “We had over 30 parents come up and they made the trip easy. It’s a few days of nothing but baseball and your teammates for these guys.”
Waguespack has earned wins over St. Frederick and Lutcher so far and Stein said the senior is making a strong impression.
“You know, after we lost last year to Parkview in the playoffs, Coach Wag (Paul Waguespack) said he thought we’d be ok this year (pitching wise) in part because B.J. keeps getting better and better. He looks like a prophet right now. He’s pushing to be that guy on the mound for us.”
Stein was especially pleased with the win over St. Frederick because it was at St. Frederick’s home park.
“We played St. Frederick and Ouachita Christian at their home, so those were more like true road games,” said Stein. “We needed to win a close game, get our cage rattled a little bit because we hadn’t had that. (St. Frederick) went up 1-0 on us and we were able to come up with the kind of win we really hadn’t had yet.”
SCC will compete at Riverside’s tournament this weekend, the Fatty’s Invitational.
