MADISON — All season long, St. Aloysius coach Scott Mathis has been urging his young team to have the guts to shoot.

The Flashes did on Thursday, but needed a little more luck to go with their newfound moxie.

Madison-St. Joseph keeper Saadik Charles made nine saves, and the Flashes were shut out for the second straight game, 1-0, despite a dominant performance in the second half.

St. Al outshot the Bruins 9-2 in the second half and played most of it on St. Joe’s side of the field, but couldn’t slip one past Charles.

“That’s been our story with these young guys. I’m still moving some people around and they’re starting to click a little bit. We’ve just got to put the ball in the back of the net,” Mathis said. “It’s a work in progress, and we’re working hard at it. This was a great game.”

Neither team had much in the way of quality scoring chances until St. Al took firm control over the last 25 minutes.

The Flashes and Bruins combined for just five shots on goal in the first half, but one of those turned out to be the difference in the game.

St. Joe’s Reese Newman headed in a corner kick from his brother Jay Newman in the 35th minute for the game’s only goal.

Despite the loss, St. Al bounced back from a disastrous 5-0 defeat three days earlier against St. Andrew’s and kept its playoff hopes very much alive.

The first playoff tiebreaker is head-to-head goal differential, which essentially makes each home-and-home series within a division one long game rather than two.

For St. Al (3-6, 0-2 Division 5-1A/2A/3A), that means it can still qualify for the playoffs by beating St. Joe (6-6-2, 1-1) by two goals in the rematch Jan. 19 in Vicksburg.

“We’re just practicing and practicing. We’re going to go in on the 19th and we’re going to take them. That’s what I think,” Mathis said.

(G) Madison-St. Joe 8, St. Aloysius 2

On a frigid night in Mississippi, the St. Aloysius Lady Flashes’ playoff hopes were effectively destroyed by a fiery rain of goals from Madison-St. Joseph.

Riley Wolf and Reilley Reeves each scored two goals, while Allie Milner and Joanna Bellan each had a goal and an assist in the Lady Bruins’ rout.

Wolf and Reeves scored all of their goals in the first half for St. Joe (11-6, 2-0 Division 5-1A/2A/3A).

Shelby Bottin had a goal and an assist, and Haylee Prescott had a goal for St. Al (6-4-1, 0-2), but both scores came in the final 10 minutes.

“It gave us a little bit of dignity back,” Prescott said of the strong finish.

Thursday’s loss, coupled with a 6-0 defeat Monday against St. Andrew’s, effectively squashed St. Al’s chances of reaching the postseason. It would need to rout both teams in the rematches to make up the huge goal differential.

“It’s very disappointing. I expected us to do a lot better than we did,” St. Al coach Don Rowland said of the difficult week. “We hadn’t had a lot of practice, had some kids sick, had two miss again tonight. It’ll be a struggle to come back out of this.”