St. Aloysius’ Chris Albert stood near the top of the key, just outside the 3-point arc, and lobbed a pass toward the hoop. It was off target and missed his teammate — and instead went cleanly through the net for a 3-pointer that nearly had Albert doubled over in laughter.

When things are going that well, it’s hard not to crack a smile.

Albert’s unintended 3-pointer was one of five the Flashes hit in the first half Thursday night against Porter’s Chapel Academy. Four of them came in the last four minutes of the first quarter as St. Al quickly pulled away and cruised to a 68-33 victory in the first of two meetings this season between the crosstown rivals.

“The kids played hard. After a layoff, you never know what to expect when they come back. They obviously kept themselves in shape,” St. Al coach Eddie Pickle said. “We had a bad spot in the second half where we got lazy. I didn’t like that. But anyway, we’ll take it. It’s a district win.”

Albert finished with seven points for St. Al (6-6, 1-1 District 3-AAA), which was playing its first game in three weeks. Braxton Chewning scored a game-high 20 points, while Thomas Trichell scored 10 and his twin brother James had nine.

Thursday’s game marked the start of a difficult stretch for St. Al. It plays four games in eight days, including district games against Hillcrest Christian and Riverfield Academy.

“Looking at the rest of our schedule, with Hillcrest and Riverfield coming up next week, we needed this win. We needed this bad. Those two teams are loaded,” Pickle said.

Porter’s Chapel has a similar stretch of games. Thursday’s was the second of four in six days. The loss to St. Al was its fifth in a row since mid-December, and all of them have been by 20 points or more.

Michael Tod Andrews led the Eagles (6-9, 0-2) with 14 points and Jake Arias scored eight. PCA was 13-for-46 (28.2 percent) shooting from the field overall and 3-for-14 from 3-point range.

PCA was to play again Friday night, at home against Discovery Christian. On Monday it will go on the road to face Sharkey-Issaquena Academy in Rolling Fork.

“That was something that has been detrimental, because before the season that was something we were needing. The last four or five games, it has killed us,” PCA coach Chad Lessard said of the team’s shooting. “Is it frustrating? Yes. But it’s part of the game. They have to go game by game. We’ve got two non-district games here in the next four or five days. It’s going to tire us out, but maybe that’s something we need to get back on our feet. Hopefully it’ll get the rhythm going. I can see in the players’ eyes that they know we’re better than this.”

The first basketball meeting between PCA and St. Al since 2013 quickly turned into a one-sided beatdown. After playing to a stalemate for the first four minutes, St. Al hit four 3-pointers in the back half of the first quarter to open an 18-8 lead.

The Flashes then scored the first seven points of the second period to push it to 25-8 with 6:11 left. They went on to outscore the Eagles 21-3 in the quarter and led by 28 at halftime.

The second half was more even, but PCA never got closer than 25 points.

“Congrats to (St. Al). They just made shots. That’s something we haven’t been able to do in the last couple of weeks,” Lessard said. “We’ve been struggling and it showed. Right off the bat, they were making circus shots. One of their players looked like he was about to throw an alley-oop and he made a 3. That’s something that has not gone in our favor.”