[11/5/04]How do you salvage a season?

Beat your archrival for the sixth straight time, knock them out of the playoffs and end the year on a three-game winning streak.

St. Aloysius, which has struggled through a dismal 3-7 season, can accomplish all of that tonight when it hosts Catholic school rival Cathedral (4-5, 4-4 Region 4-1A).

“It’d be nice to finish on a three-game winning streak and put them out of the playoffs,” St. Al running back Rob Jones said. “It’d be the best way to end my senior season, the way it’s gone.”

St. Al’s postseason hopes were dashed long ago. Hurt by the loss of 11 starters from last season and crippled by injuries at one point this season, a third of the roster was out with various ailments the Flashes struggled to a 1-7 start.

St. Al rebounded with wins over Dexter and West Lincoln the last two weeks, however, and can end the season on a high note by beating a team it has owned in recent years.

The Flashes have won the last six meetings in the long-running rivalry. Coach Jim Taylor has never lost to Cathedral, and neither has the current group of seniors.

“The first year, our kids didn’t expect to beat them. Then, after we beat them a time or two, they got to expecting to beat them,” Taylor said. “That might have something to do with it.”

Cathedral coach Ken Beesley Sr., who has been at the Natchez school since 1969 and been its head coach since 1978, said dominance in the series runs in cycles.

Before St. Al’s first win of the current streak, in 1998, Cathedral had won 15 out of 16. The one St. Al win in that era of Green Wave supremacy came in 1996, meaning the Flashes have actually won seven of their last eight against Cathedral.

“For a long time, we had their number,” Beesley said. “A couple of years, they just had the better team. But a couple of years I thought we had the better team and just didn’t come ready to play. Maybe we were too fired up.”

That seems entirely possible, if you listen to partisans on both sides. Longtime St. Al coaches speak of their almost-rabid hatred for Cathedral, and the lessons have been passed down from generation to generation.

“We’ve just grown up not liking each other,” said Jones, who needs 97 yards in the season finale to surpass the 1,000-yard mark for the second straight year. “You grow up not liking Cathedral, and they grow up not liking us.”

The ill will has continued in recent years. Although most of the games have been close, the memory of a 51-7 St. Al blowout in 2001 lingers.

In that game, Flashes’ backup QB Will Sobecki called a timeout in the closing seconds to try for another score, then ran it in on a sneak with five seconds left.

St. Al students reminded Cathedral of the score at every opportunity, displaying huge bedsheet signs at basketball and baseball games later in the school year.

“We haven’t forgotten about that,” Beesley said, a hint of rivalry-fueled anger in his voice before he gave way to a more diplomatic answer. “There have been some good games and some blowouts, just like any rivalry.”

Taylor would welcome another lopsided win by the Flashes.

“It’d certainly make things better,” Taylor said. “It wouldn’t make any difference if we were 10-0 right now, simply because it’s a rivalry between two Catholic schools that have a long run of playing each other. It’s as important a game to the community here as we play all year, district or otherwise.”