Flashes fly over Salem for homecoming victory
Published 12:00 am Saturday, October 10, 2009
After a stormy month, and just before a rainy weekend, St. Aloysius sprinkled a little sunshine onto its season.
Regan Nosser completed 13 of 22 passes for 165 yards and two touchdowns, Carlton Campbell scored two touchdowns, and St. Al routed Salem 34-0 on homecoming night at Balzli Field.
The victory snapped a two-game losing streak for the Flashes (4-3, 1-2 Region 4-1A) and sent them into a Thursday night game against archrival Cathedral on a high note.
“A win does a lot for a ballclub. We lost two tough ballgames that we were in right at the end. That’ll do a lot for us,” St. Al coach B.J. Smithhart said. “We’ve got some good ballplayers. They’re going to put it together.”
Smithhart may have found another good player on Friday night.
Senior Blake Haygood, making his first start of the season at wide receiver, caught nine passes for 127 yards and a touchdown. His reception total was two short of tying the Warren County single-game record shared by three players.
Haygood did most of his damage on short passes. His longest reception was a 29-yarder for a touchdown in the final minute of the first half, but it was actually a 10-yard out route. He caught the pass from Nosser, broke a tackle near the sideline and sprinted the last 20 yards into the end zone for a touchdown that made it 20-0.
“I guess maybe the field was wet. I would break to the outside and get open,” Haygood said. “We just started throwing the ball more. We were being more aggressive.”
Nosser found Haygood — and most of his other receivers — often. He tossed an 11-yard touchdown pass to Campbell in the first quarter and just missed another on St. Al’s opening drive when Haygood was forced out at the 1-yard line. Freshman tailback Elliot Bexley punched it on the next play for the game’s first score.
Out of Nosser’s nine incompletions, four were drops.
“I told them we were going to loosen up and attack more. This was a good time to do it. The kids needed a little pick-me-up,” Smithhart said. “We shortened it down and worked on some new plays. Getting it out quick, less thinking and more action.”
St. Al scored on each of its first two possessions, then stretched the lead to 20-0 at halftime on Haygood’s TD reception with 44 seconds left in the second quarter. Conner Brown added a 3-yard TD run in the third quarter, and Campbell broke off a 41-yard run early in the fourth to finish the scoring.
Salem (2-6, 0-4) managed only 134 yards of total offense, half of it on a nearly eight-minute drive in the first half that didn’t come close to putting points on the board. Starting at their own 17-yard line, the Wildcats marched 65 yards to the St. Al 18 before stalling.
Salem also had two turnovers, fumbled two shotgun snaps inside the St. Al 20, and had just 45 yards of offense and two first downs in the second half.
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Contact Ernest Bowker at ebowker@vicksburgpost.com