Flashes facing the big boys of summer|[6/23/06]

Published 12:00 am Friday, June 23, 2006

Even though summer is only two days old, it’s already been a long, hot season for the St. Aloysius Flashes.

St. Al dropped the first game of a doubleheader to the Vicksburg Juniors on Thursday, a 5-3 loss that was the Flashes’ latest challenge to a program in a higher classification.

Class 1A St. Al has played about a dozen games in the last 2 1/2 weeks, all against Class 4A or 5A teams. They’ve taken their lumps, gained some experience and showed the kind of improvement in the little things that coaches look for during the summer season.

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&#8220We’ve gotten a lot better. We started sluggish but we’re coming along,” said St. Al first baseman John Robert Burnett, who went 1-for-3 with an RBI single against Vicksburg. &#8220We’ve got some basketball going on at the same time, and a couple of guys at the State Games. We’ve gotten a lot of younger guys some playing time, and that’s going to help us.”

So will playing the tougher competition. The Flashes’ summer schedule includes eight doubleheaders against Class 5A teams, two more with Class 4A Ridgeland and one with Class 4A Raymond. They’ll wrap things up by playing in a wood bat tournament July 6-8 at Clinton.

&#8220We played teams like that in the regular season, too. Come playoff time, those are the teams we’re going to play. We don’t play the podunk 1A schools,” said Burnett, whose team was eliminated from the playoffs this season by eventual Class 1A champion East Webster.

The Flashes still have a few areas to work on before the summer ends. They committed three errors against Vicksburg, leading to four unearned runs. Passed balls, offline throws and a lack of timely hitting were also a problem.

St. Al assistant coach Mitchell Beauman said a lot of the Flashes’ weaknesses stem from their youth. Six of the nine starters in the regular lineup during the high school season were sophomores or younger.

&#8220Some of them do play beyond their age and you forget how young they are,” Beauman said. &#8220We had a team party and they started running around playing backyard ball, things kids do. You start to wonder why they’re doing that. You forget they’re 13, 14 years old, because we treat them like men. But we can’t use that as an excuse. We’ve got to get better.”