The St. Aloysius Flashes bullrushed through their second minefield in as many weeks and stand ready to reap the reward.

Alex Halinski ran for 114 yards and two touchdowns on only 12 carries, and the Flashes didn’t allow Sebastopol past the 40-yard line in a dominating 28-0 win Friday night.

The victory kept St. Al in control of its own destiny for its first playoff berth since 2002. If St. Al beats Pisgah in the regular-season finale next Friday, it will clinch the No. 3 seed from Region 3-1A in the Class 1A playoffs. A loss to Pisgah could drop St. Al (7-3, 6-2), Pisgah and Nanih Waiya into a three-way tie that would be decided by a complicated system of tiebreakers.

&#8220No matter what we did tonight, we had to win next week to make sure we don’t have a bad situation,” St. Al coach Jim Taylor said.

St. Al dominated Sebastopol from start to finish in a game that was as quick – a little over 90 minutes – as it was lackluster.

Chip Donald returned the opening kickoff 31 yards to midfield, and six plays later Halinski punched it in from 4 yards out to put the Flashes ahead 7-0.

Sebastopol had its only highlight on St. Al’s next possession, when Thomas Brown came off the left end, shed a block and blocked Marsh Willis’ punt at the St. Al 35-yard line. Brown was called for offsides, however, and Willis got off a clean punt that was downed at the Sebastopol 6.

The Bobcats drove out to their own 36 before punting and St. Al went to work again. A pair of 11-yard runs by Harris Martin and Halinski moved the ball to the Sebastopol 34, where Donald took a handoff on an end-around and sprinted the distance for a touchdown.

Halinski added a 17-yard TD run on the Flashes’ next possession to make it 21-0 at halftime, and Sebastopol (3-7, 2-6) never came close to threatening in the second half. The Bobcats crossed midfield twice, but never penetrated deeper than the St. Al 42-yard line.

St. Al added one last touchdown on its first possession of the second half, on a 62-yard pass from Chris Lewis to Jordan Muirhead, then seemed content to sit on the ball and give its backups some playing time.

&#8220We’ve had some times when we’ve come back and beat times by that much, so we know it can be done. So we didn’t need to lay down,” said Halinski, who surpassed the 2,500-yard mark for his career on his second carry of the game.