The St. Aloysius Lady Flashes had an excellent strategy going into Tuesday night’s home match against visiting Madison-St. Joseph.

Go conservative with their faster players staying on defense in the first half and then opening up the throttle with the same speed moved up front.

It came within an eyelash of working.

St. Joe got two first-half goals from Caroline Loveless to earn a 2-1 victory over St. Al.

“We played hard,” St. Al coach Keiko Booth said. “We don’t have the numbers, so we’ve got to give all we’ve got the whole time and we did that. They knew how important this game was to us.”

Marie Booth got the Lady Flashes (4-2-1) back into the contest, down 2-0 with just four minutes remaining. Dayton Gamble’s free kick was right on target and Booth, in a cluster of defenders, poked the rebound off the St. Joe into the back of the net to cut the lead in half.

“It was a nice shot on goal, the goalie tapped it, lost control and I got it in,” Booth said. “I thought I we played hard the whole 80 minutes.”

But the St. Joe defense was able to hold the St. Al attack at bay for the rest of the contest.

In the first half, the Lady Bruins outshot the Lady Flashes 5-1, as Loveless knocked a unassisted shot past St. Al keeper Tori Hines with over 18 minutes elapsed in the first half.

Just 10 minutes later, Loveless was in position again and booted a rebound home to give St. Joe (6-4-2) a 2-0 halftime lead.

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Contact Steve Wilson at swilson@vicksburgpost.com