By RYAN ARENA

L’Observateur

LAPLACE — The learning curve was supposed to be a bit steeper for St. Charles.

The Comets returned just four offensive and one defensive starter and began the year against three strong teams, two ranked in the top 10 of their respective classifications.

Nonetheless, St. Charles remains undefeated, the latest victory coming over local rival West St. John, 28-0.

“I never would have thought we’d be 3-0 today,” said St. Charles coach Frank Monica. “But now that we’re here, the important thing is to not slip into complacency. Watching the film, I think the kids realize that they’re doing a lot of things well, but can do them a lot better potentially.

“The teams that continue to work on things and improve from this point to week 10 are the ones that can make some noise. Complacency is the enemy.”

This Friday night represents the start of District 9-2A play. The Comets travel to Lusher to kick things off at Drew Brees Family Field, facing an improved Lions team that has won two straight contests.

Plaquemine defeated Lusher (2-1) soundly in the season’s first week, 41-13. Since then, the Lions have knocked out victories against Pine (20-18) and McMain (35-34).

Monica stressed that his team’s focus was, as it often is, on making internal improvements, but that SCC also wouldn’t be taking the opposition lightly.

“Lusher boasts a lot of talented seniors,” said Monica. “When you play these teams from year to year, they get to know you better. They’ve got a pair of game breakers at running back and it should be quite an atmosphere there. We need to correct some offensive mistakes from Friday night, improve on special teams, and get back to basics.”

After lighting up the scoreboard for two weeks, a 28-point effort against a strong West St. John defense was hardly a poor effort. But St. Charles saw a number of scoring chances negated by mistakes in the first half.

A spectacular 50-yard, return-like run by Hall was called back for holding. Another potential Hall scoring run was negated when the Rams forced a fumble before he crossed the goalline. The Comets lost a redzone scoring chance when Denzell Pierre intercepted Donnie Savoie in the endzone on first-and-10 from the Rams’ 13. And the Comets suffered from a number of uncharacteristic penalties.

“We made some errors, had some missed assignments,” said Monica. “But West St. John also had a lot to do with it.”

SCC led 7-0 at halftime largely due to a suffocating defensive effort led by end LaJaylin Smith. Smith finished with a sack, a fumble recovery and forced fumble and two tipped passes while leading the Comets in tackles.

“After last week, we had things to work on,” said Smith. “We had to prove all over again that we could do it. Our mindset tonight was to go all out and we did what we had to do.”

Aaron Hampton and Dalton Hale also came up with interceptions.

“I was pleased with our defensive adjustments,” said Monica. “The kids responded extremely well.”

The night also saw the latest big performance in a string of them by running back Marcus Hall, who finished with 154 rushing yards and three touchdowns despite having the aforementioned 50-yarder called back.