A beat-up St. Aloysius football team returns this week for homecoming at Balzli Field.

Tonight’s guest is Dexter, which currently leads Region 3-1A with a 2-0 mark. The Bulldogs are 3-3 overall.

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St. Al hosts Dexter

St. Aloysius is 2-3 coming off its worst loss in B.J. Smithhart’s three-year tenure, a 53-6 rout at Bogue Chitto.

Smithhart said the Flashes have moved on from their region-opening loss.

“We didn’t play well. It started off bad and couldn’t turn it around,” Smithhart said. “We just have to wash out last week. We went back to working on blocking and tackling. We want to get better and stay focused.”

The Flashes had two weeks to prepare for Bogue Chitto, but a physical loss at Madison St. Joe left the team with a long injury list. Linebacker Josh Eargle is out for the season with a knee injury and kicker Jud Gatling hurt his ankle.

The injury list grew after the Bogue Chitto game.

“Matt Wooten is banged up, but will play,” Smithhart said. “Tyler Cranfield is banged up, but will also play. We don’t know about Tyler Matherne (shoulder) and Jud (Gatling) will need another week.”

Wooten is the Flashes’ top offensive lineman at tackle and doubles at nose guard.

“We just need to play better,” Wooten said.

It may be difficult against Dexter, but the Flashes could be motivated by last year’s game, when the Bulldogs ended the season of Ryno Martin-Nez with a devastating knee injury. Dexter also won the game 33-14.

Smithhart says his team must focus on this game.

“Dexter has a good football team,” Smithhart said. “They are really fast and really athletic. And they will run two totally different offenses. Some times they run a wing-T and then another time they will be five wide. They run a lot of different formations.”

St. Al is a run-first team that prefers to play physical up front. Carlton Campbell leads the team with 281 yards rushing and two touchdowns.

The Flashes will again rotate two quarterbacks, Ford Biedenharn and Carlisle Koestler.

Linebacker Matt Jones keys the defense and his two interceptions rank fifth in the county.