[1/13/05]There’s no place like home, especially for St. Aloysius.

For the first time in nearly two months, the St. Aloysius boys and girls teams will get to find out what its like to play a game inside their own gym.

Tonight, St. Al hosts Mississippi School for the Deaf in a Region 7-1A contest. The St. Al girls (5-9, 1-2) will tip things off at 6 p.m. The St. Al boys (2-12, 2-1) follow at 7:30.

The last time St. Al suited up for a home game was back on Nov. 30 against Loyd Star. Eleven straight road games followed.

The long road spell has made for a strange season for many of the team’s seniors.

“A lot of my school friends don’t even know if we’re any good or not,” Ellen McCaa said.

Sara Burrell added, “We’ve only had two home games and they were in the first month. We’ve been on the road a lot.”

First-year coach Drew McBrayer feels his boys team had the tougher end of the road bargain.

“Our non-region schedule was pretty tough on the boys,” McBrayer said. “I know we’re looking forward to being at home. It’s basically been two months on the road. At least we’ve got six home games left.”

Laura Weeks gave her opinion on why the Flashes had to deal with their road ordeal.

“The schedule was made out by the old coach and I think he knew he was leaving. We were going to have a different type of team under a new coach and one that had so much potential,” Weeks said.

Two of the seniors said the hardest trip was a Dec. 17 visit to West Lincoln.

“We played West Lincoln right before the Christmas break. We were just out of school and we just didn’t show up,” Burrell said.

“West Lincoln had this single-wide for a dressing room and the gym was pretty bad,” Weeks said.

McCaa’s vote went to Greenville St. Joe, a team the Lady Flashes beat Tuesday night 45-30.

“The trip to Greenville is so boring because it’s all delta.”

It was at Greenville where the Lady Flashes suffered one of their biggest losses at the hands of Gulfport St. John. West Lincoln was no picnic either.

“I’d say West Lincoln and then St. John were the two best teams we’ve played,” McCaa said.

There was little disagreement about the highlight.

“Beating (Natchez) Cathedral,” answered Brian Dyess. “Cathedral is our archrival and beating them at their place is the high-point of my career at St. Al.”