The St. Aloysius Flashes got off to a fast start Tuesday night. Everything after that seemed like a blur, and not in a good way.

Copiah Academy erased an early 10-point deficit by halftime, then pulled away in the second half to beat St. Al 67-45 in a boys’ basketball game.

Jamarius Gragin led Copiah (16-7, 3-1 MAIS District 3-5A) with 17 points, and Trey Wood and Kam Phillips scored 14 apiece. The Colonels outscored St. Al 47-19 in the second and third quarters.

“We started standing around and looking. Two were playing defense and three not,” St. Al coach Kim Windom said. “At halftime we tried to make adjustments, and I thought we made adjustments, but we came out and we just started standing around and looking. And as we started standing around and looking, the score started piling up more and more.”

St. Al got off to a great start. Korey Sims and Antley McCloud each hit a 3-pointer in the first quarter as the Flashes raced out to a 13-3 lead.

It was gone in less than three minutes.

Copiah opened the second quarter with a 15-0 run, taking the lead on two free throws by Wood with 5:11 left, and never trailed again.

St. Al was still within four points at halftime, 30-26, but another 16-0 run by Copiah in the third quarter put the game out of reach. A 3-pointer by Carson Henderson with 1:10 remaining ended a six-minute scoreless drought, but by then Copiah was ahead 48-32.

Henderson finished with six points. Ahmad Stewart and Will Keen led St. Al with 11 points each, and McCloud scored eight.

“We didn’t stick to the game plan,” Windom said. “They started ripping and running, and we started ripping and running. That’s not our game plan. That’s not what we do. We try to make teams play a halfcourt game. They started playing the game that they play, and we’re not good at that game.”

The loss was the latest in a difficult season for St. Al (2-9, 0-5). Windom said was made even more disappointing by other recent games in which it seemed the Flashes were turning a corner.

St. Al plays district games Friday at Madison-St. Joseph and at Cathedral on Jan. 17, with a home date vs. Class 3A power Greenville Christian sandwiched in between on Saturday at 2 p.m.

“We’d played much better the last three games. If we brought that to tonight’s game, I felt we would have won this game,” Windom said. “We stayed in the game for four quarters with other teams we’ve played and lost it down the stretch. But tonight’s game, we didn’t play like we played the last three games.”

Porter’s Chapel 65, Manchester Academy 54
Ty Mack and Lawson Selby both posted double-doubles, and Porter’s Chapel Academy pulled away from Manchester in the fourth quarter Tuesday to earn its fourth consecutive victory.

Mack finished with 24 points, 10 rebounds and four steals, while Selby had 21 points and 11 rebounds. Noah Porter also chipped in nine points, five rebounds and five assists, and Chase Hearn grabbed eight rebounds.

Mack and Selby combined for 11 points in the fourth quarter, and Porter went 4-for-4 from the free throw line as the Eagles outscored Manchester 20-12.

Jake White led Manchester with 13 points and Jon Parker Dees scored 11.

PCA (10-4, 6-1 MAIS District 3-3A) will play a key district game at home Thursday against defending Class 3A champion Greenville Christian. The girls-boys varsity doubleheader begins at 6 p.m.