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St. Aloysius' Holden Davidson (22) fights for possession of the ball during Monday's boys' soccer game at Balzli Field. (Ernest Bowker/The Vicksburg Post)

St. Aloysius' Eli Shiers (18) heads the ball as Pillow Academy's Kevin Hernandez (7) also goes for it during Monday's game. (Ernest Bowker/The Vicksburg Post)

St. Aloysius' Dalton Windham (6) tries to shield the ball from Pillow Academy's Ruben Martinez (10) during Monday's game at Balzli Field. (Ernest Bowker/The Vicksburg Post)

St. Aloysius' Clay Pierce (19) and Carter Smithhart (5) bracket Pillow Academy's Flavio Barrera (20) during Monday's game. (Ernest Bowker/The Vicksburg Post)

St. Aloysius' Corbin Burroughs (4) plays the soccer ball during Monday's game against Pillow Academy. (Ernest Bowker/The Vicksburg Post)

St. Aloysius' JR McCain plays the soccer ball during Monday's game against Pillow Academy. (Ernest Bowker/The Vicksburg Post)

The St. Aloysius Flashes got a good look at the bar and couldn’t quite clear it. Now, their goal is to get another chance.

Daniel Lara scored two goals, one in each half, and Pillow Academy played a frustrating game of keep-away for the last 15 minutes to beat the Flashes 2-1 in a boys’ soccer game on Monday.

Pillow, the defending MAIS Division II champions, clinched the West District title with its win.

“Sometimes you’re climbing a hill and sometimes you’re there. It’s harder to stay there, but they just outplayed us,” St. Al coach Jay Madison said. “We brought a better effort than we did up there, and we’re close, but you’ve got to take it. They’re not going to give it to you. You can’t expect a lucky break. You just have to take it from them. We didn’t exhibit some of that confidence it takes to just take it from them.”

St. Al (9-3-1, 1-2 Division II West) is still very much alive for the playoffs. It must beat Bayou Academy at home on Jan. 27 to get the No. 2 seed behind Pillow.

If St. Al gets into the playoffs, it could face Pillow again in the semifinals. Pillow won both meetings this season by one goal, 1-0 and 2-1.

The Flashes beat Bayou 5-4 last week, in a game Madison said they didn’t play their best. St. Al let a 3-0 lead slip away before winning in overtime.

“We let that one get away. We were up 3-0 and just didn’t finish it off. We let them hang around and they picked up a goal, then next thing you know they picked up another one,” Madison said. “I think we thought we could just park the bus and be done and they came back on us. To our credit, we figured out a way to get the win on the road. That’s not easy. If we play like we’re supposed to, then we’ll be good.”

Even though they lost, the game against Pillow was close and competitive enough that Madison took some encouragement from it.

Lara scored less than five minutes into the game, and didn’t get his second goal until the 59th minute in the second half.

Lara’s second goal wasn’t a shot so much as it was an attempted cross that happened to find the net. He dribbled all the way around the edge of the box, from left to right, then blooped the ball toward the net. St. Al keeper Marques Flowers cut down the angle of attack, but the high, soft shot arced over his head and behind him, and had the right angle to bounce into the left corner.

“I told the keeper, ‘What’s your job?’ and he goes, ‘Guard the near post.’ I told him, ‘You did it. Nobody saves that.’ He just blooped it in,” Madison said.

St. Al’s goal came a few minutes later, when it was awarded a penalty kick following a handball in the box. Carter Smithhart converted it to cut the deficit to 2-1 with 17 minutes left.

Pillow, however, frustrated the Flashes for the rest of the game. When the Mustangs weren’t stalling by slow-walking throw-ins and kicking the ball deep out of bounds, they were passing and dribbling through St. Al’s defense for long stretches and breaking up any offense the Flashes generated.

It was a similar pattern most of the day for St. Al. It had enough of an offensive push to keep the game competitive, but struggled to turn it into high-quality scoring chances.

St. Al’s two best opportunities in the second half came in the third minute, when it was unable to follow up a cross that deflected off the hands of keeper Wiley Mortimer; and in the 55th, when Mortimer saved a point-blank header by Sam Hall.

“We fought for the game, but we couldn’t quite get enough quality to finish it,” Madison said. “We had some opportunities. Some things that just happened. But the difference is we didn’t make those happen sometimes. Somebody would get on the end of a ball and we’d get it crossed, and couldn’t quite outman our guy to get it in. It happens like that sometimes.”

About Ernest Bowker

Ernest Bowker is The Vicksburg Post's sports editor. He has been a member of The Vicksburg Post's sports staff since 1998, making him one of the longest-tenured reporters in the paper's 140-year history. The New Jersey native is a graduate of LSU. In his career, he has won more than 50 awards from the Mississippi Press Association and Associated Press for his coverage of local sports in Vicksburg.

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