Every time St. Aloysius started stacking some positive plays together Friday night, it seemed like one little thing went wrong and brought the whole pile crashing down.

Columbia Academy took advantage of every missed tackle, ill-timed penalty and negative play that put the Flashes behind the chains to beat them 28-0.

“Here’s a thing that I’m learning as a head coach in this whole process. When you’re establishing everything — offense, defense, special teams, culture — you can’t ever hurt yourself. You can’t have a holding call. You can’t have pass interference. We can’t fumble a snap or throw picks. But that’s part of learning,” St. Al coach Walker Mosby said.

Jackson Speir rushed for 96 yards and two touchdowns for Columbia Academy (5-4), and Reed Duncan had 61 yards and one TD. As a team, the Cougars had 251 rushing yards.

Columbia only led 6-0 at halftime, but scored on its first three possessions in the second half to pull away.

St. Al finished with 135 yards of total offense. Pierson Smith was its leading rusher with 42 yards on 16 carries.

St. Al (1-7) was held without an offensive touchdown for the third game in a row, although it did have a few chances to score.

Its first drive of the game moved into Columbia territory before a holding penalty and two incomplete passes forced a punt.

The Flashes then consumed most of the second quarter with a 9 1/2 minute drive that got as far as Columbia’s 16-yard line. A delay of game penalty and a running play that lost yardage pushed them back to the 28. They lined up for a long field goal attempt, but another delay of game penalty nixed that idea. The Flashes instead turned it over on downs with seven seconds left in the half.

“Tonight it was one of those nights that everything clicks and then something happens,” Mosby said. “But we have to be mentally tough and we’ve got to get to the point where that doesn’t affect us. We have to get to the point where we can make up that lost ground.”

St. Al got the ball back to start the third quarter, but threw an interception. Speir scored on a 6-yard run on Columbia’s ensuing possession, and Duncan ran in the two-point conversion for a 14-0 lead.

Columbia added two more TDs, on a 14-yard run by Duncan and a 4-yard run by Trent Buckley, to extend it to 28-0 midway through the fourth quarter.

“I never feel like there’s a breaking point or our kids just break. I always feel like they fight. I always feel like they always grind and play their tails off to the best of their ability,” Mosby said. “We just have to keep fighting because teams fall behind all the time and they have to claw their way out and that’s one of those moments.”