The best offense is a lot of times the best defense, but for St. Aloysius girls’ soccer team, that was not the plan.

Lady Flashes coach Karen Carroll opted to put her best offensive weapon, Andrea Harrison at sweeper in an effort to keep the powerful St. Andrew’s offense in check Monday night at Balzli Field.

It worked to a degree as St. Andrew’s scored just two goals, but that was also the only two scored in a 2-0 Lady Flashes’ non-division loss to the Saints.

The loss drops St. Al to 7-2 on the season while St. Andrew’s improves to 5-1.

&#8220When we play a hard team like this, she likes to put me in the back,” said Harrison who scored 15 goals coming into the contest. The Lady Flashes’ senior has committed to play soccer at Mississippi State next fall.

While Harrison did her job in turning back several Saints’ attacks, the Lady Flashes could muster little offense. St. Andrew’s controlled the middle from the start and had the Lady Flashes playing defense for most of the game.

&#8220I thought the girls played great, we just couldn’t get anything going on offense,” Carroll said.

St. Al managed just two shots on goal, those coming off mid-range penalty kicks in the second half. St. Andrew’s, meanwhile, had 24 shots on goal. Five went either high or wide but 17 were stopped by Lady Flashes’ keeper, Tori Hines.

&#8220Tori did a really good job of making some saves and it helped us hold them down,” Harrison said.

Only once in the first 16 minutes did St. Andrew’s manage to get past Harrison when Hannah Halford got a 1-on-1 shot at Hines, but the St. Al keeper made the diving save.

Minutes later, Hines turned back a short mid-line shot from Krissy Ford to keep the game scoreless.

Finally, the St. Andrew pressure broke through but it came about off an attack from the wings. A pass by Catherine Thomas found Ford who booted in a 25-yarder from a left-to-right angle for the goal with 4 minutes, 58 seconds remaining in the first half.

Hines made three more easy saves to start the second half before St. Andrew’s Emily Anne Scott took a 45-yard, diagonal kick that went over Hines’ head and into the goal, making it 2-0 with 26:14 to play.

&#8220I wanted to see more diagonal kicks in the second half and Emily Anne made one that just so happen found the goal,” St. Andrew’s coach Kori Johnson said.

St. Al’s only scoring chance came with 10:02 remaining when Rebecca Sigh’s 35-yard penalty kick sailed wide.

Harrison moved back to her normal midfield position with seven minutes left but by then St. Andrew’s had dropped back its attack and ran out the clock.