MABEN – After a week of blowing leads late, St. Aloysius finally found some relief.

Joseph Brown and Ryno Martin-Nez helped get the Flashes out of two late jams to beat Nanih Waiya 6-4 Thursday afternoon in the opening game of the Class 1A, first-round playoff tournament at East Webster.

St. Aloysius (13-13) advanced to today’s winners’ bracket game against East Webster (21-5) at noon. Nanih Waiya (14-12) meets the loser at 3 p.m.

St. Al coach Clint Wilkerson was pumped up after the victory.

&#8220We had a great effort from everybody. Joseph Brown came in and did a great job. Then we had, what I think is the best eighth-grader in the country finish it up. He knew we were going to be touch-and-feel with our bullpen, hoping we’d only have to use it for one inning, because he has the start (today),” Wilkerson said. &#8220It’s good to win this first game, because it puts us one step closer to winning a state title,” Martin-Nez said.

Trailing 6-2, Nanih Waiya strung together three straight hits off a tiring Brown who came to the top of the seventh for his third inning of relief. With one run in and the tying run at the plate, Martin-Nez struck out Dylan Morgan for the first out of the seventh inning.

He had a 1-2 count on Ziggy Marro, but lost him on a soft single to right that loaded the bases.

Martin-Nez then induced a force out at second as the Flashes made a trade of a run for an out. Now up 6-4 and the tying run still on first, Martin-Nez ended the game, getting Cody Vowell to fly out harmlessly to center fielder Jordan Muirhead.

Martin-Nez said it helped that the Flashes had seen Nanih Waiya before the playoffs. St. Al took a 9-6 decision from the Warriors in March at the Lake Spring Break Tournament.

&#8220It helped a whole lot. I knew a lot about their hitting approach,” he said.

Offensively, St. Al made use of eight Warrior errors.

On two occassions, the Warriors made terrible throws home following base hits, allowing the Flashes to score three key runs.

&#8220We made too many errors,” sighed Nanih Waiya coach Justin Reed. &#8220We missed the cutoff man twice and it led to four errors and three runs for them. We also didn’t hit that well. We had just three hits until the last inning, but it still goes back to us not playing defense.”

St. Al grabbed a 1-0 lead when Blake Tidwell doubled in Muirhead in the first inning. Two Warrior errors helped set up J.R. Burnett’s run in the second for a 2-0 lead. Muirhead knocked him in with his second hit of the game in the second inning.

Nanih Waiya got on the board with an RBI double from T.J. Robbins, who later scored on St. Al’s only error of the game to tie it at 2-2.

St. Al retook the lead when Chip Donald came around after a hit to right by Marsh Willis. Donald was pulling up to third after the hit, but came home when the throw from right sailed over the catcher’s head.

Muirhead, the St. Al starter, pitched a scoreless fourth but ran into trouble in the fifth. Two walks helped the Warriors get the go-ahead run to second base.

Enter Brown.

&#8220I wasn’t that nervous. I’ve pitched in a couple of games this year,” Brown said.

The ninth grader got two pop ups and then struck out Marro to end the threat.

The Flashes gained some cushion, scoring three runs in the bottom half of the fifth. Tidwell walked and Stephen Evans was hit by a pitch from Nanih Waiya starter Jack Edmonson.

Willis then sent another single into right. Tidwell scored easily, but again the relay throw home was too high, allowing Evans to score as well for a 5-2 lead.

The Warriors compounded their problems by throwing away the toss back to Edmonson, who was covering the plate. That error, the eighth of the game, allowed Willis to take third.

Burnett’s single up the middle scored Willis for a 6-2 lead. Muirhead went four innings to get the win. He issued seven walks but was only touched for two runs. Brown gave up four hits in two innings.

Muirhead, Tidwell and Willis each had two hits for the Flashes.