Rebels, Comets tie for district, await playoff matchups

Published 12:02 am Saturday, April 23, 2016

LAPLACE — The St. Charles Catholic baseball team played its final District 12-2A game against Country Day a day early, then jumped on the Cajuns early.

St. Charles scored one run in the first inning Wednesday, three in the second, four in the third and one in the fourth, to cruise to a 9-3 win over the Cajuns.

Zach Roussel drove in three of the Comets’ runs, with a single in the first inning and a double in the third. St. Charles got five hits off of Cajuns’ starter Jase Griffin, who also walked six. Country Day also committed three errors. Pitcher Evan Pfister held the Cajuns to two hits, walked none and struck out four.

The Comets also defeated Country Day 6-1 Tuesday.

With the sweep, St. Charles clinched a share of the District 12-2A title, along with Riverside Academy and Newman. Riverside completed its district schedule April 15 with a 17-0 win over Country Day. Newman concluded Tuesday with a 13-0 win over West St. John. All three teams finished with 6-2 records in district play.

“I don’t want to say it means nothing,” Comets coach Wayne Stein said.

“It is the first time we’ve shared a district title in a few years. It does make me proud of our district. Us, Riverside and Newman are pretty good, and Country Day is competitive, and four of the 32 teams in our bracket came from our district.”

This was the first year Riverside and St. Charles were in the same district since 2011. St. Charles won the title that year and the previous one.

“It doesn’t bother me,” said second-year Riverside coach Frank Cazeaux.

“The thing is, it’s all about power points today. District doesn’t really mean anything any more. In the old days, we’d be flipping a coin to see who the odd man out was, then they would sit out while the other two played. It’s not about that anymore.”

Now all three teams must await Sunday’s announcement of the state baseball playoff tournament pairings, which are based on power rankings.

Entering this week, St. Charles Catholic was No. 2 in the state’s power rankings and should remain there. Riverside was No. 9, and Newman was No. 11. East St. John concluded its season Wednesday with a 5-1 loss to Central Lafourche to finish 12-15, 4-8.

Softball note: Today’s St. Charles Catholic softball playoff game against Mangham will be live streamed on SportNOLA.com Saturday. First pitch is set for 1 p.m.

St. Charles (23-3) is the No. 8 seed in Class 2A and has won six straight games. The Lady Comets have scored at least 10 runs in 21 of their 23 victories. Mangham is the No. 9 seed. The Dragons (21-10) are 7-0 on their opponents’ home fields this season.