Over the course of six seasons as a varsity starter, Jack Dowe helped transform St. Aloysius into a championship soccer team.

Now, he’ll try to do the same at Northwest Mississippi Community College on a much shorter timetable.

Dowe, a midfielder who had 13 goals and 34 assists while leading the Flashes to the MAIS Class AAA championship this season, signed with Northwest in March and had a formal ceremony Tuesday in St. Al’s library.

“I liked the atmosphere better up there. It came down between Northwest and East Central. I didn’t want to follow everybody else and do what everybody else was doing. I wanted to go and do my own thing somewhere else,” Dowe said.

Dowe picked Northwest over offers from several other Mississippi junior colleges including Meridian, East Central and Holmes. East Central has become a popular landing spot for Warren County players — five Warren Central alumni will be on next year’s roster — and Dowe said they tried to sway him to join them.

“They wanted me to go,” Dowe said with a laugh. “They were pretty upset when I told them I wasn’t going.”

The opportunity to build a winner also appealed to Dowe. Northwest Mississippi finished with a 2-8-2 record last season, while East Central was 10-6-1.

“I knew East Central had a good team, and I knew Northwest didn’t have a good team. So it was either go up to the atmosphere that I liked better, or go to a team that was better. I decided that if I go up to Northwest I can probably make a change up there and they can have a good team,” Dowe said. “Their recruiting class is pretty good this year, too. They have a lot of kids from Oxford coming up there.”

Dowe was certainly a difference-maker for St. Al. He was a six-year starter who truly came into his own as a senior. After playing on defense and serving as a secondary scoring option for most of his career, he shifted to midfielder and was the driving force behind the team’s state championship run as an on-field leader.

Dowe was the Flashes’ second-leading scorer and set up most of top scorer Ryan Theriot’s 50 goals. He was picked to the MAIS All-Star team and scored four goals in three playoff games as St. Al won the first state title in school history.

“When it comes to practice and stuff, Jack was just Jack. But when he steps on that soccer field it’s all business,” St. Al coach Scott Mathis said. “That’s the way it’s always been, because he loves the game so much. That’s something that you can’t replace. You’ve got a player that leads by example. Not leading with his voice, but with his play. The kids really look up to that.”