Turnovers. Penalties. Strange and unfortunate plays. Almost everything that could go wrong for St. Aloysius, did go wrong in a season-opening loss to Adams County Christian School last week.

Every Friday offers a fresh start, though, and the Flashes are trying to keep that in mind as they get ready for this week’s home opener against Cathedral. The Catholic school rivalry is renewed Friday at 7 p.m. at Farrell Stadium/Balzli Field.

“It can be frustrating, but you’ve got to march on from it and continue to fight forward. You don’t want to fall into this quicksand of things keep piling up and piling up,” first-year St. Al coach Walker Mosby said. “Each play is a new play no matter what the outcome was on the previous play. Whether we get a 10-yard loss or a 20-yard gain, it doesn’t matter. Each play is a new play for us. Those things happen to some of the best teams. We just have to continue to fight for it.”

Beating ACCS, the reigning MAIS Class 5A champion, would have been a difficult assignment under the best of circumstances. The mistakes the Flashes made did nothing to help their cause.

A high snap killed the opening drive into ACCS territory. Two defensive penalties by St. Al kept a scoring drive alive for ACCS. A fumbled kickoff and a low snap that caused the punter to accidentally touch down his knee while fielding it gave the Rebels excellent field position and two more easy touchdowns.

Combined with other less obvious mistakes, it added up to a 41-14 loss and plenty of teaching points for Mosby in practice this week.

“We’ve got to stop shooting ourselves in the foot. We had three turnovers, we gave them good field position on a punt. Offensively, we’ve got to get better at running the football. I thought throwing it was decent, but we also on defense have to have gap integrity as well,” Mosby said. “There’s a lot of things we have to fix, but the biggest thing is stop shooting ourselves in the foot with the turnovers and giving up field position for the other team.”

Cathedral finished 2-8 last season, but has a high-powered offense that can give the Flashes trouble if they don’t play well. The Green Wave built a 34-point lead in their opener against Central Hinds before scuffling to a 55-37 victory.

Cathedral quarterback Tristan Fondren threw for more than 200 yards and four touchdowns, and Mosby said the Wave has enough explosiveness to give opponents problems.

“I think they’re a good team. I think they’re well-coached. They do play hard and they don’t make mistakes, and when you have all of those things coming together it helps you,” Mosby said.

Coming together is something Mosby hopes helps St. Al as well. Although it was a rough night against ACCS, he said he was proud of his players for not throwing in the towel. The Flashes scored two touchdowns in the fourth quarter to make the score a little more respectable and gain some momentum heading into Week 2.

“We have great athletes. I truly believe that. There’s no other group I’d want to go to war with than these guys we have right now,” Mosby said. “It’s just us executing, us understanding our assignment, and protecting the football.”

FRIDAY’S GAMES
MAIS regular season – Games at 7 p.m.
Prentiss Christian at Porter’s Chapel (Radio: 104.4 FM)
Cathedral at St. Aloysius (Radio: 101.3 FM)
Tallulah Academy at Franklin Academy
Red Carpet Bowl – Games at 7:30 p.m.
Holmes County Central at Vicksburg (Radio: 107.7 FM)
Clinton at Warren Central (Radio: 105.5 FM)
• Red Carpet Bowl tickets are $10 for each game and are available online at GoFan.co