LAPLACE — Riverside Academy and St. Charles Catholic both managed to survive last weekend’s deluge and the regional round of the Class 2A baseball playoffs. Both advance to this weekend’s quarterfinals.

They just took different paths to get there.

No. 2 seed St. Charles Catholic won its best-of-three playoff series against No. 15 Sterlington, sealing the deal Monday morning with a 3-2 victory played at Jesuit’s John Ryan Stadium in Metairie.

The Comets had dropped the first game 5-1 Friday and won Game 2 Saturday 4-2. The teams had just begun the third game before rain washed out the rest of the weekend. After attempts to move the game to nearby turf fields were unsuccessful Sunday, the Louisiana High School Athletic Association allowed the deciding game to be played Monday.

St. Charles will host No. 7 Holy Savior Menard in a 3-game series beginning at 4:30 p.m. Friday. Game 2 will be played at noon on Saturday. If necessary, a third game would be played following the end of Game 2.

Riverside Academy also advanced to the quarterfinals but needed only one victory to do so. The No. 6 Rebels defeated No. 11 Newman 9-3 on Friday. Their Game 2, scheduled for 1 p.m. Saturday, was first delayed an hour or so by lightning, then was washed out by the afternoon deluge.

The teams attempted to move to Avenger Field in New Orleans on Sunday, but the rains never let up enough to do so.

Late Sunday night, the LHSAA enforced the rule as written that the games must have been played by midnight Sunday. Because only one game was played, Riverside advanced.

The Rebels will travel to No. 3 Ouachita Christian for a 3-game series, set to begin at 5 p.m. Friday in Monroe. Game 2 will be played at noon Saturday. If necessary, a third game would be played 35 minutes after the end of Game 2.

Weather permitting.

“Yes, it’s unfortunate, but you’ve got teams that are going to benefit from it that didn’t write the rules,” Riverside coach Frank Cazeaux said. “You’ve also got situations where, in the first round, which was single elimination, some teams just had that really good pitcher that were not going to make it to the 2-out-of-3. My thing is, it’s unfortunate for the weather, but I have to look out for my kids.”

The Comets were luckier than some teams after losing the first game and winning the second to tie the series. Had they not been able to finish Game 3, the rules would have had the series revert back to the outcome of the first game, which was won by Sterlington.

Instead, St. Charles got to fight it out on the field.

Fight they did.

Zach Roussel, the Comets’ ace pitcher, was knocked out of Friday’s game when he took a hard-hit grounder to the face while playing third base, knocking out a tooth and leaving him with a bloody lip.

The stalwart senior visited a dentist, had his tooth cemented back in and returned Saturday to pitch all seven innings in the Comets’ 4-2 win, giving up five hits.

“It’s awesome,” Roussel said with his swollen and bruised lip. “We did everything we expected to do. I threw strikes.”

After the win, Roussel was all for the new best-of-3 format.

“Yes, because we’re still in it,” he said.

The Comets finally sent Sterlington home Monday morning, taking a 3-2 win on just two hits. St. Charles scored three runs in the top of the first inning on a grounder by Justin Ory, a sacrifice fly by Brady Newman and a passed ball.

Sterlington scored a pair of runs in the fourth inning on a pair of singles, but that was all the Comets would allow. Evan Pfister gave up six hits, walked none and struck out one.

“I still like the 2-out-of-3 series just because it eliminates that one bad game,” Comets coach Wayne Stein said.

“We were 24-7 going into this and didn’t play well on Friday. Sterlington had a lot to do with it, but it would have been devastating if that had been the end of our season.”

Stein said he felt bad for Sterlington coach Mark Sims, who had to spend three nights in a hotel with a bunch of teenagers while waiting out the rain, but he was grateful to the Jesuit folks who allowed the use of their field. All the angst he went through Saturday and Sunday proved to be worth it.

“Friday we’re out there and our best pitcher is lying on the ground with teeth on the ground, bleeding and we’re thinking, ‘This is it,’” he said. “Then he comes back the next day all numbed up, and competes and gets a win for us.

“Just to think of where we were at that moment, for us to be mentally tough enough to get back to this and finally get a chance to play and win with two hits — you just never know.  It was very stressful.”