By DAVID FOLSE II

Sports Editor

NEW IBERIA-The season is over for the state champions of a season ago as the St. Charles Catholic Comets were defeated by Catholic New Iberia, 14-6 earlier this week.

Although disappointed with the loss, the season was very successful for the Comets. St. Charles Catholic captured the 10-3A district championship yet again.

Falling behind 8-0 to a talented New Iberia squad, the Comets cut the lead to 8-6 in the fifth inning, but never got closer than that.

“Credit New Iberia,” St. Charles Catholic Head Coach Paul Waguespack said. “They were simply better than us. They had 12 hits to our five and three of those I think came in our big inning when we scored six runs. They dominated from the beginning.

“It really was not any one thing. In the game of baseball that happens. Does it take away from the year that we had? No. It doesn’t take away from the year that we had. We won our third district championship in the past four seasons.”

Waguespack did say he will miss his senior class, one that was state runners-up just a season ago.

“This senior class has done a lot for us,” Waguespack said. “They were a big reason that we went to the state championship game a year ago. “Martin on the mound, Matt Sutton making great plays and his hitting, David Rollo’s play.

“Right now you would still just like to be playing. However, somebody had to go home and it just happened to be us this time. We caught them (Catholic New Iberia) at a hot time. I think that is kind of what happened. They got hot and we didn’t. They took advantage of a couple of miscues that we made and they capitalized and had two big innings.”

Waguespack said had his squad limited New Iberia instead of allowing the two big innings, the outcome may have been different.

“We just could not stop the bleeding,” Waguespack said. “We could not get out of those big innings. It was no one play or no one pitch. When you look at the big picture, that one day they were better than us, they soundly beat us and they outpitched us.

“They outplayed us in every phase of the game. My hats are off to them. I am proud of my team and I am proud of my kids. We have nothing to be ashamed of. We have no reason to hang our heads. It is just tough that we lost this early.”

Moving down to Class 2A next season, the Comets will be one of the most experienced teams in the state.

“It has been like that for the last 20 years,” Waguespack said. “It is nothing that I have done. We have had a good tradition of baseball here and that was built and left by the people that came before me.

“Next year we have a good nucleus of kids coming back. We started six juniors this past season and they are all back for next season. Next season there is a chance that we will start eight seniors. It is not like that the cubbard is bare. We had a good junior varsity program this year that won some games. So we have some good young talent coming up.”