Halinski’s TDs, goal line stop power St. Al.

St. Aloysius made the stop it had to make and then made the drive it had to have to hang on and beat Cathedral 12-7 Thursday night at Balzli Field.

Flashes linebacker Alex Halinski stopped a fourth down Cathedral play for a yard loss to end a Green Wave threat in the fourth quarter, then powered a drive that ate up seven precious minutes, moving the ball from the St. Al 6-yard line to the Cathedral 30.

When Cathedral finally stopped the march on downs, only 3 minutes, 29 seconds remained. The Green Wave picked up one first down on a late hit penalty, but quarterback Patrick McDonough misfired on two passes.

St. Al (1-0) ran off all but 12 seconds before giving the Green Wave one last desperate shot which was quickly snuffed on Marsh Willis’ interception at midfield.

&#8220Coach (Jimmy) Salmon tells us we need to be play-makers on goal line situations and that time we got one,” said Halinski, who had three tackles for loss to go with 179 rushing yards and two TDs on 29 carries.

St. Al coach Jim Taylor was glad to get the hard-earned win in spite of his team’s problems with costly penalties. The Flashes were hurt by a couple of false starts and a delay penalty that stopped drives. The defense was also flagged for three 15-yard penalties.

&#8220We played hard and got a victory which is something we didn’t do a lot of last year,” Taylor said. &#8220I thought we stopped ourselves with the penalities. Had we scored there that other time we were down there in the first half, we could’ve opened the game up better.”

St. Al built a 12-0 first half lead by dominating the line of scrimmage. The Flashes outgained the Green Wave 293 to 84 in the first 24 minutes, keyed by blocks from the left side by tackle Matt Thornton, guard Daniel Berryhill and tight end J.R. Burnett.

Halinski’s first touchdown came on a 35-yard rumble with 8:24 left in the first quarter. The kick failed, leaving the score at 6-0.

The second score came on an 11-yard sweep, capping a massive 14-play, 94-yard march that chewed 8 1/2 minutes off the clock. A two-point try failed, but St. Al still led 12-0 with 1:55 left in the half.

Cathedral got back in the game with some help from St. Al. An interception of a Chris Lewis pass by McDonough was returned 37 yards to the St. Al 33. Two plays later, Taylor Brantley busted a draw for a 33-yard TD run. Harrison Burns added the kick to make it 12-7 with 8:30 left in the third quarter.

St. Al went three-and-out on its next possession and Cathedral had the ball back on its own 15. Aided by a 15-yard face mask penalty, the Green Wave got to the 40. McDonough then hit a pair of passes, the first an 11-yarder to Forrest White that carried the ball past midfield and the second a 42-yard catch and run by Daniel Jenkins that took it to the Flashes’ 5.

St. Al stuffed the Wave for a 1-yard loss on first down. On second down, Jess Morrison picked up five yards to the 1, and a dropped snap on third down resulted in a yard loss. On fourth down, a high snap messed up the timing and Morrison was cut down by Halinski for a yard loss.