By RYAN ARENA

L’Observateur

LAPLACE – St. Charles gave their home fans a treat on Tuesday – five minutes of extra basketball.

The victory was nice, too.

The Comets topped St. Paul’s 54-49 in overtime in St. Charles’ home opener this season.

SCC was led by Trenton Dunn, who scored 16 points. John Williams scored 14. Jesse Coleman and Mike Green each scored seven.

St. Charles went 7-fot-7 at the foul line in OT.

The teams were tied at 19 at halftime and at 42 at the end of regulation.

“We knew that game would be important for us going into the CYO tournament,” said St. Charles coach Chris Perrone. “They proved to be a pretty good team when they knocked off Jesuit 42-40. They just got a number of their football players in, so they perhaps weren’t quite in sync yet … we played some good defense. You hold them under 50 points, you did a pretty good job. We battled through some adversity and came out okay.”

Perrone said that his team overcame allowing 14 offensive rebounds to the bigger Wolves’ squad by hitting their foul shots and limiting turnovers.

“It was a fight for all five quarters,” said Perrone. “We stepped up at the end.”

A night later, SCC began play at the CYO tournament. The Comets lost their first two games at the tourney. SCC fell 52-29 to hosting Rummel Wednesday, then moved on to face East St. John who prevailed 63-27 (see East St. John story for details).

The Comets jumped on Rummel early, leading 16-6 after a quarter. The Raiders turned on the defensive pressure though and allowed just 13 Comet points the rest of the way.

Taylor Peytavin led SCC (3-3) with 10 points. Williams scored eight and Green scored seven.

“Coming off overtime the night before against a team of tough-minded Rummel guys, it was difficult,” said Perrone. “We got off to a good start but we couldn’t keep it going. They got rolling behind the arc in the second quarter to tie it up and they took control after that.”

Rummel and SCC were tied at 23 at halftime. Rummel led 33-25 in the third quarter.