Comets Rally to Win, advance to 2nd round of playoffs
Published 12:02 am Wednesday, February 8, 2017
- St. Charles Catholic soccer player Andrew Rodrigue, No. 4, dribbles to try to set up a shot for the Comets during Saturday’s Division IV playoff game against Ascension Christian. Rodrigue scored a pair of goals to help the Comets to a 3-2 victory. (Lori Lyons/L’OBSERVATEUR)
LAPLACE — The St. Charles Catholic boys soccer team knew it couldn’t end this way.
After that tough 1-6 start, after winning 10 games in a row and winning the district title, the Comets just couldn’t see it all end in the first round of the Division IV playoffs.
Looking at a 1-1 tie at halftime against No. 21 seed Ascension Christian, the No. 12 seed Comets refocused in the second half and rallied to take a 3-2 win.
The Comets, now 12-8-1, will travel to No. 5 Westminster Christian Academy in Lafayette for a 5:30 p.m. match today.
St. Charles Catholic goalkeeper Matthew Templet, who suffered a brutal facial injury in the final game of the 2016 season, helped hold off the Lions.
The Comets had to get past a persistent Ascension Christian team having perhaps its best season in school history.
St. Charles took a 1-0 lead in the first half before the Lions tied it. In the second half, the Comets let Ascension Christian take a 2-1 lead before scoring the last two goals of the match.
Andrew Rodrigue scored the first goal of the match and the tying goal in the 16th minute of the second half.
It was Brandon Lemoine who scored the winning goal with a little more than six minutes remaining to give the Comets the win.
“The ball was just bouncing around and I figured I might as well put it towards the net and, if it goes in, it goes in,” Lemoine said. “I just hoped for the best and it happened to go in. It was exciting. It’s our senior year. We didn’t want it to end in the first round, for sure. We couldn’t lose this one.”
Rodrigue said the team lacked a bit of focus in the first half.
“It was close but it shouldn’t have been,” he said. “We came out with bad focus and intensity. Once we went into halftime and it was 1-1, it really hit us we had to step up.”
Comets coach Sean LeBlanc said Ascension Christian brought a tough game to LaPlace.
“They had two real quality guys up front and they punished us,” he said. “(They) played defense and counter, and we didn’t have patience. We made a lot of bad choices and a lot of bad decisions and gave the ball away to them way too much and played their style. It was close but we live to play another day and that’s all that matters. It doesn’t have to look good, it just has to be good.”
In girls soccer action, Taylor Aubert scored two goals and Kailey McCall scored another to give No. 15 seed Riverside Academy a 3-2 win over Grace Christian Academy.
That put the Lady Rebels in a second round rematch against rival St. Charles Catholic Tuesday. SCC won that contest 1-0, pushing the No. 2 seed Lady Comets into the third round.
