As much as they’d hoped to do it, the St. Aloysius Flashes didn’t necessarily expect to go undefeated this season. Their first loss could have come at a better time, though.

The Flashes dropped a 6-1 decision to Riverfield Academy on Thursday to end a 14-game winning streak. They’ve still clinched a playoff berth, but now must regroup heading into a key series this week against Central Hinds that will decide the District 3-AAA championship.

“We set goals at the beginning of the year, and none of them were to go undefeated. Our first one was to win the division, which is still right there in front of us,” St. Al coach Sid Naron said.

St. Al (14-1, 5-1 District 3-AAA) and Central Hinds (4-1 in district play) will play a home-and-home series Tuesday in Raymond and Friday at Bazinsky Field. If either team is able to sweep, it will claim the district title and a first-round bye in the MAIS Class AAA playoffs that begin April 23.

If they split the series, the district title will be decided by a run differential tiebreaker in these two games. That wrinkle essentially makes this week’s series one long game, where every run matters. An extra run scored or saved on Tuesday could mean the difference in the bigger picture.

“When you’re playing that, every single run is extremely important, offensively and defensively,” Naron said. “We’ve been talking about this since day one. This is something I didn’t want to have to bring up at the end of the year, saving runs. That’s something they’ve really embraced, is in the late innings being able to tack on and put teams away and keep adding runs every inning. Last night is going to make our guys hungry to refocus on where we were.”

Where that was, was on top of the heap until Riverfield temporarily knocked them from their perch.

St. Al beat Riverfield 8-0 in their first meeting last week, but left seven runners on base and committed five errors in the rematch on Thursday night. Riverfield scored four runs in the fourth inning and two more in the sixth before Naron turned to ace Tyler Breithaupt to keep the game from getting worse.

Breithaupt had thrown six-plus scoreless innings on Tuesday, on only 56 pitches. He only needed 29 to get through 2 1/3 innings on Thursday, striking out five and not allowing a hit, to help put St. Al in the playoffs.

Had Riverfield won the game or added a couple more runs, it could have inserted itself into the District 3-AAA playoff picture through the same run differential tiebreaker that’s in play this week between St. Al and Central Hinds. Instead, Riverfield was eliminated and it became a two-team race.

“That’s a reason we brought in Tyler Breithaupt, was because we had to keep that run differential down. He came in and shut the door and threw extremely well,” Naron said.

Now the Flashes can turn their attention toward Central Hinds as they resume their march toward the playoffs. Even with one loss now on their record, and no matter what happens this week, Naron said he felt pretty good about the direction things are headed.

“This group, we have some really good leadership amongst this team. Some guys were hurting (Thursday), but they showed up (Friday) and had a really good workout and were pushing guys,” Naron said. “Moving into the end of next week and the latter part of this season, I feel really good about our chances.”

ST. ALOYSIUS VS. CENTRAL HINDS
• Tuesday, 7 p.m., at Central Hinds
• Friday, 7 p.m., at Bazinsky Field
• St. Al and Central Hinds are tied for the MAIS District 3-AAA lead. The winner of their head-to-head series will claim the district title and a first-round bye in the Class AAA playoffs.