GREENVILLE — Through one half of football, St. Aloysius had shown the Greenville St. Joseph Fighting Irish nine different offensive formations.

The offensive variety continued into the third quarter as the Flashes (2-1) built a 14-0 lead, then survived a wild fourth quarter to pull out a 20-14 overtime win over the previously unbeaten Irish (2-1). Second year St. Al coach B.J. Smithhart called it the biggest win of his career and a lot of credit should go to his multi-faceted offense.

“That’s what we want to do,” Smithhart said of his varied formations which are designed to give teams a lot to think about.

St. Al is primarily a spread option team and ran that scheme to great effect as quarterback Regan Nosser had a 32-yard run to set up the Flashes’ opening score. They also threw out of the spread, threw out of the power-I formation, ran and threw out of a conventional I-formation, used tailback Ryno Martin-Nez in the spread option at quarterback, tinkered with some mid-line option and a split pro-set formation, and finally in overtime, just ran Martin-Nez out of the power-I formation for three short runs and the win.

“We run a bunch of different sets,” Martin-Nez said. For the game, Martin-Nez finished with 115 yards rushing on 21 carries. Six of the carries came when he played a Tim Tebow-like quarterback in the third quarter and resulted in gains of 20 and 17 yards. He also completed a 10-yard pass to Pierson Waring.

But it was his 29-yard reception on a third-and-long screen pass that gave the Flashes a chance to win with two minutes left in regulation. The play carried to the Irish 12. On first down, St. Al fullback Brendan Beesley fumbled the ball at the 10 and the Irish recovered in a 14-14 game.

Martin-Nez said the comeback in overtime was to pick Beesley up.

“We wouldn’t be here without Brendan Beesley. He is a great back for us and a great blocker for me. We can do so many things on offense because of him and the way our offensive line is blocking. In overtime, I went behind Brendan’s blocks and those of our line,” Martin-Nez said.

“Brendan Beesley is the heart of our team,” Smithhart said. “I had great faith he would come back from the turnover and help us win.”

“I was down after the fumble because we’re all about ball control,” Beesley said. “I just have to be more disciplined. But this was a great win. We beat these guys in eighth grade, but they’ve got a lot more speed now. Our guys just did a great job of containing the outside.”

As an offense, St. Al finished with 327 yards in total offense against a good Irish defense. They rushed for 227 as Beesley gained 73 and Nosser had 37 to join Martin-Nez. The Flashes also threw for 100 yards as Nosser went 4-of-8 for 90 yards.

Smithhart feels he can try as many formations as he does and still be efficient because of the progress his offensive line has made in the first three weeks.

“We’re getting there. They’ve done a good job,” he said.

That’s good news for tackle Mike McKnight, a 240-pound senior.

“We’ve changed some stuff up with our blocks and we run a lot of stuff, but it’s all about playing hard. The line is faster this year. Hopefully we can use this win to get pumped up for the rest of the season,” McKnight said.