EDINBURG — Stephen Evans had two days to figure out what went wrong in his first start against Edinburg.

Two days to replay every fastball he left up, analyze all the curveballs he didn’t quite break off enough. He even got to watch his younger brother, Reed, show him the blueprint for shutting down the Eagles.

On Monday night, the older Evans went back to work and corrected all of his mistakes.

The senior right-hander, pitching on two days’ rest, threw a three-hit shutout to lead St. Aloysius to a 3-0 victory over Edinburg in Game 3 of a first-round Class 1A playoff series.

Evans struck out 14 batters and walked two. The Eagles only hit three balls out of the infield — two singles and a fly out. After throwing 112 pitches in Game 1 on Friday, he threw 111 in his Game 3 gem.

“I just blocked the arm feeling out and knew I had to come out and be alive with every pitch,” said Evans, who also had an RBI single in the first inning. “I just tried to focus on getting ahead of everybody and work from there.”

The victory sends St. Al (16-7) into the second round, where it will face Nanih Waiya. Games 1 and 3 of the best-of-three series will be Friday and Monday at Nanih Waiya, while Game 2 will be Saturday at Bazinsky Field.

The Flashes will head into that series with a huge confidence boost after a pair of dominating performances. After losing Game 1, 7-3, the Evans brothers combined to throw 13 innings of shutout ball.

The Flashes also beat one of the best pitchers in Mississippi, Edinburg ace Mitchell Wooten. The right-hander, who had made a name for himself by allowing 12 hits and 11 runs in 10 regular-season appearances, gave up nine hits and six runs in two starts against St. Al. Monday’s game was the first he lost this year.

Like Evans, Wooten (8-1) returned to the mound for Game 3 on two days’ rest and turned in an impressive performance. Wooten allowed just four hits and struck out 11 in a complete game. After throwing 130 pitches in Game 1, he threw 132 in Game 3.

“Just knowing we got through one of the top pitchers in the state is big. If we beat him, we can beat anybody we want,” Evans said.

St. Al managed four hits in Game 3, but did most of its damage off of Edinburg’s mistakes.

After Wooten hit two batters in the first inning, Evans drove a single up the middle to give the Flashes a 1-0 lead. In the sixth, back-to-back walks set up Brendan Beesley’s RBI single and a throwing error allowed another run to score and to make it 3-0.

The Flashes had plenty of chances for more, but kept misfiring. They had runners in scoring position in every inning except one, yet only scored in the first and sixth. St. Al stranded 11 runners total, seven of them in scoring position. It was the one area coach Clint Wilkerson felt his team fell short.

“I was disappointed in our bats,” Wilkerson said. “To win a state championship we have to hit with two outs and runners in scoring position, and we didn’t do that all series. That’s not what we do offensively. We’ve got to lock in.”

Luckily for the Flashes, Evans only needed a handful of runs. He struck out five of the first six batters he faced and didn’t allow a hit until Trey Hughes punched a check swing single into right field with two outs in the fourth.

The only real jam Evans faced was in the bottom of the sixth inning. Matt Sanders reached on a bad-hop infield single and Wooten followed with a base hit to center. Wooten moved up to second on the throw to third, putting runners at second and third with two outs.

Evans didn’t flinch. He got Hughes to swing and miss for strike three and, as he left the mound, let out a cheer and a fist pump.

Evans went back out in the seventh and struck out the side. Taylor Ellis chased a curveball in the dirt for the final out, the last brush stroke of a masterpiece.

“It was fun back there catching him,” Beesley said. “Fastball away. He was eating them up. He was hitting his spots all night long.”