Reserve — The Riverside Academy and St. Charles Catholic softball teams look to be  shoe-ins to make the playoffs, which will begin next week throughout the state.

The Louisiana High School Athletic Association will get that started with the announcement of  the playoff pairings Thursday.

The latest power rankings (through April 6) have St. Charles at No. 5 and Riverside at No. 6. with less than .10 of a point separating the two.

If that holds up through the addition of the final games, Riverside and St. Charles would be on opposite sides of the Class 2A bracket, putting them on a course that would have them meet again in the state championship game on April 30 at Frasch Park in Sulphur.

It’s not over yet, though.

Riverside started this week with a tough 16-14 loss to St. Amant Monday.

The two teams combined for 31 hits with the Lady Rebels knocking 13. Lexi Johnson had three of those and five RBIs.

If Mother Nature proves to be a good sport today, the Lady Rebels are slated to face their former district rival, John Curtis, at 5 p.m. in River Ridge.

The St. Charles Catholic Lady Comets concluded their regular season Monday with a 14-4 win over De La Salle.

For East St. John and West St. John, there will be no post-season. East St. John will conclude its season  at 4 p.m. today against Donaldsonville.

West St. John will close out its district schedule at home against Country Day.

The area’s baseball teams still have another week to play.

The Comets are coming off a solid 4-1 victory over Archbishop Shaw Saturday. Justin Ory drove in the go-ahead run in the ninth inning, scoring Lloyd Nash, who reached on an error then stole second.

Ory was 2-for-3 with one RBI and one run scored. Brady Newman had two hits and two RBIs.

ESJ dropped a heart-breaker to Thibodaux Saturday, surrendering a seventh-inning lead to fall 5-4.

Riverside will host Country Day Thursday to close out its District 12-2A schedule.

St. Charles Catholic has moved its two games against WSJ to a 3 p.m. Thursday double-header at St. Charles.