LAPLACE — St. Charles Catholic coach Wayne Stein sees his pitching rotation rounding into form, and it couldn’t come at a better time.

The Comets have won five of their past seven games, including a pair of decisive wins over McMain and another over Maurepas sandwiched around a tight loss to Brother Martin last week.

“I don’t know whether to be thrilled or annoyed,” Stein said of the team’s 5-2 mark in their last seven. “In a sense, we were two hits away from going 7-0 in that stretch and we’d really be feeling good about ourselves. We’ve been playing pretty well, though. With a lot of big games coming up … we could probably end up anywhere from seven to 16 in the rankings, so it’s the time to pick things up.”

Austin Weber and  Zach Roussel have asserted themselves atop the Comets rotation and pitched well in recent games. Weber pitched a shutout against Maurepas, while Roussel has allowed just one earned run over his past 15 innings — while SCC (15-10) lost both of Roussel’s most recent starts, those performances against strong 5A competition in Dutchtown and Brother Martin have been welcome sights to Stein.

“(Roussel) has been really consistent this year, and in the beginning you wonder what he’d do against some tougher competition,” Stein said. “We went with him against a couple of our tougher opponents and he delivered. He throws three pitches for strikes and gets strike one very, very often.

“Austin threw a one-hitter against De La Salle recently, then scattered three hits (against Maurepas). The past two starts he’s had, he’s thrown well, and I think he’s starting to return to form.”

Against Maurepas (13-8), SCC scored at least one run in each of its five innings at bat, as it took a 10-0 victory at home April 7.

Zach Weber led the Comets’ offensive charge, going 3 for 3 with three RBIs. Zach Justin Loupe, Austin Weber, Brady Newman and Justin Ory each collected two hits and an RBI.

Austin Weber allowed three hits and struck out five to earn the win.

“The score wasn’t really indicative of the game,” Stein said, “It wasn’t an easy win by any stretch. We scored three runs in the third inning, which kind of created a little distance.”

Against Brother Martin (16-9), Roussel scattered four hits and allowed no earned runs in a complete game performance, but the Crusaders earned the 2-1 win behind a strong pitching performance by LaPlace native Keagan Gillies.

“We had our chances,” Stein said.

“I was frustrated, but at the same time, their pitcher had a lot to do with that. (Gillies) pitched really well and gave us a hard time when we were in striking distance.”

Dane Authement drove in the lone run for SCC.

The Comets played District 11-3A foe McMain twice over the past nine days, besting the Mustangs 18-1 in LaPlace and 16-0 at McMain. Nick Scioneaux, Jacob Jensen, Justin Ory and Evan Pfister combined to throw a perfect game for SCC at McMain. Newman and Ory each hit home runs for the Comets.