By Cody Thomason
The Vicksburg Post

St Aloysius did better than last time, but still was not able to take down Central Hinds on Wednesday.
Central Hinds scored three times in the second half and beat the Flashes 3-1 to extend its winning streak to 66 games.

The Cougars beat St. Al 8-0 last week in Raymond so, while they didn’t come out with a victory, this game did showcase a lot of improvement for the Flashes. Coach Scott Mathis was looking forward to one more potential meeting this season in the MAIS Class AAA playoffs.

“Good team, haven’t lost, but we had a couple of unlucky goals, and we couldn’t finish the way we should’ve finished, I have four or five guys that can finish balls and they just weren’t on,” St. Al coach Scott Mathis said. “It happens, it’s soccer. It’s disappointing, but we have another time to play them, so we’ll come back and get them next time.”

The game was scoreless at the half, and even on the stat sheet. St Al had six shots on goal, while Central Hinds (6-0) mustered five. St Al keeper Chuck Beamish had four saves as well.

Early in the second half, Central Hinds was able to bust through the defense and finally put one up on the scoreboard. Just two minutes into the half, a corner kick led to a header that bounced around and was eventually kicked into the left side of the goal.

For the next 15 minutes, both teams played stellar defense, with St Al getting four saves. In the 57th minute, Central Hinds was able to catch Beamish out of the box trying to corral the ball, and snuck a kick by for the second score. Just five minutes later, it scored again in similar fashion.

Now down, 3-0, St Al worked hard to get on the offensive and got a few solid chances, including a header from Kieran Theriot that barely soared over the goal. Ryan Theriot also missed high, but with 13 minutes left he went down in a mob of bodies during a shot attempt to earn a penalty kick. He kissed the shot off the top right corner post and into the net for the Flashes’ first goal.

St Al got a few more chances, but ultimately came up short. Even with the loss, the team was much better defensively in their second matchup with Central Hinds.

“We had players back that were out, and we had players that weren’t quite as sick that were back,” Mathis said. “That’s what we worked on, the defensive. It’s these long throws, or these kicks over our heads, stuff like that is not the kind of ball we play typically.”