St. Aloysius and Coffeeville have only played once in recent history, but it was enough to spark a rivalry.

When the Flashes went on the road and knocked off Coffeeville in the first round of the 2013 playoffs, it derailed the Pirates’ promising season and seemingly sent them on a mission of revenge.

Coffeeville has laid waste to almost every team in its path since then, winning 12 of 13 games this season — nine by shutout — to ascend to the No. 1 ranking in the Associated Press Class 1A poll and reach the Class 1A North State championship game. Standing in the way of its first state championship game appearance is St. Al (12-1), the team that ruined last year’s run. They’ll meet Friday night at 7 at Balzli Field.

“It’s going to be a huge game,” St. Al senior center Bash Brown said. They’ve had us circled on the calendar for a long time, and we’ve had them circled.”

Besides their encounter last season, the teams have been on a collision course in 2014. Both lost their season opener and no games since then. The twin 12-game winning streaks allowed them to win their respective region titles, and they cruised through the first two rounds of the playoffs.

Each team has spent most of the season ranked in the top five of the Class 1A poll and they’re generally regarded as the top two teams in the North half of the bracket. The clash of heavyweights, and what’s on the line, has put the payback issue on the back burner for St. Al.

“There are a lot bigger things than revenge right now. There’s a lot on the line. They’re the number one team in Mississippi for a reason,” St. Al coach BJ Smithhart said. “They’ve got a couple of kids over a thousand (yards rushing), one that’s almost at two. Probably one of the best players in 1A. We feel like we’ve got some guys that are right there in that conversation, as well.”

Coffeeville’s success is rooted in execution, Smithhart said. The Pirates employ a wishbone offense and have only thrown 41 passes all season. The have two players with over 1,000 rushing yards and a third, Kendarius Cauthern, with 946. Antavius Moody leads the team with 2,211 yards, while Javone Dudley has 1,280.

As a team, Coffeeville has rushed for 5,498 yards and 66 touchdowns.

No gimmicks, no trickery, just brute force.

“They do what we like to do. I feel like we can throw a little better than them,” Smithhart said. “They definitely like to run the rock. It’s like they say when LSU and Alabama play, it’s big boy football. They want you to sense weakness and they want to keep pounding and pounding. We hope our will outlasts theirs and we’ll be standing at the end. It’s going to be a physical football game.”

If St. Al survives, it’ll be quite a feat for a program that went 3-8 two years ago. The Flashes’ 2013 upset of Coffeeville was as a surprising No. 4 seed, but this one has proven it was no fluke. They’ve scored 45.6 points per game, and most of the points they’ve allowed were in garbage time.

A victory Friday night would put them in the state championship game for the first time since 1981 and cement their status as one of the top programs in Class 1A.

“As a team, and as a class, we definitely worked our way to this spot,” said Brown, a four-year starter. “We earned our way to the final four.”

On the radio

Friday, 7 p.m., 101.3 FM

Coffeeville at St. Aloysius

Class 1A North State championship