From staff reports

NATCHEZ — Chris Lewis tossed an 11-yard touchdown pass to Ryno Martin-Nez with 17 seconds to play Friday as St. Aloysius defeated archrival Cathedral 31-28 in what first-year Flashes’ coach B.J. Smithhart said was the most exciting game he had ever been a part of.

St. Al built a 14-point halftime lead, watched Cathedral tie it at 21 going into the fourth quarter and then the action heated up.

Adam Thornton booted a 34-yard field goal early in the fourth quarter to put the Flashes up 24-21, but Cathedral rallied. The Irish drove down the field and scored a TD on fourth-down pass from Preston Edwards to Daniel Huffines to take a 28-24 lead with 1:17 to play.

“We knew we had to score on that drive. We were a little bit out of field-goal range so we knew we had to go for it on fourth down,” said Cathedral coach Craig Beesley. “That was a great catch by Daniel in the back of the end zone.”

Cathedral tried a squib kick that was fielded by Michael McKnight, who returned it to the 50.

“We lost our focus once we scored, and we had to waste our last time out on the extra point,” Beesley said. “Then we didn’t execute on our kickoff so they got the ball at midfield. We were trying to kick over to second level in front of the third level, and we just didn’t get it in the right spot.”

The Flashes gained 12 yards on the first play of the drive, a pass from Chris Lewis to Regan Nosser, but they lost a down and five yards on an intentional grounding call on the next play.

With no timeouts and less than a minute to play, the Flashes (3-1) drove to the Cathedral 11-yard line behind a pair of Lewis pass completions. Lewis, a senior starting at QB for the third straight year, threw for more than 200 yards, none bigger than the final play.

“We had no timeouts and had a fourth down,” Smithhart said. “We sent trips (three wide receivers) left and put Ryno (Martin-Nez) right and Chris threw a beautiful ball that Ryno caught.”

Cathedral could not mount another drive in the closing seconds as the Flashes rained on Cathedral’s homecoming festivities.

“It was pretty electric,” Smithhart said. “We went up 21-7, but I knew they weren’t through.”

The Flashes took an early 7-0 lead when Martin-Nez connected with Regan Nosser on a halfback pass for a 57-yard touchdown. St. Al quickly went up 14-0 when Nosser returned an interception 33 yards for a touchdown. Cathedral got within 13-7 at the end of the first quarter, but Lewis hit Martin-Nez on a 33-yard TD pass in the second quarter for a 21-7 halftime lead.

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The Natchez Democrat contributed to this report.