Flashes demolish Hartfield

Published 12:42 am Saturday, September 22, 2012

FLOWOOD — Just as they do after every game, St. Aloysius’ players gathered in front of the school’s band Friday night to sing the fight song.

This time, however, it wasn’t a grim-faced, going through the motions routine. This was an honest-to-goodness, full-throated victory celebration.

John Austin Jones had a pair of short touchdown runs, and the Flashes rolled up 291 rushing yards and forced five turnovers as they throttled Hartfield Academy 33-7.

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St. Al (1-4, 1-2 Region 4-1A) put up its highest point total of the season in its first victory of the year.

“It feels amazing. I’m not going to lie,” said St. Al’s Elliott Bexley, who had 33 rushing yards and a touchdown, and also intercepted a pass on defense. “We practiced hard all week and played incredible last week. It was a well-deserved win. Everybody played hard, and I think it’s going to be a big momentum boost for us the rest of the season.”

St. Al used long plays to set up short touchdowns all game long. DeMichael Harris returned the

opening kickoff 70 yards to the Hartfield 21-yard line, leading to Bexley’s 2-yard TD run a few moments later. On the Flashes’ next drive, Connor Smith completed a 75-yard pass to Will Pierce down to the 2-yard line and Jones punched it in on the next play.

Bexley and Jones each had runs of longer than 20 yards on a 10-play, 97-yard scoring drive in the second quarter that gave the Flashes a 19-7 lead. Smith’s 13-yard touchdown run finished things off.

Finally, in the third quarter, Barrett Teller ripped off a 56-yard run to the Hartfield 5 and Jones scored on a 1-yard run a few plays later to make it 26-7.

Smith tossed a 14-yard TD pass to Max Loving with 6:04 left in the third quarter to finish the scoring.

Hartfield’s touchdown came on a 1-yard run by quarterback Ryan Wesson late in the first quarter. The Hawks (1-3, 0-3) finished the game with 211 yards of offense.

“The offense helped the defense out,” St. Al coach B.J. Smithhart said. “It’s a team effort, but when your offense can move the football and do the things they did tonight, it helps a lot and gives you confidence.”

The offensive production was a welcome breakout for a team that has struggled to put points on the board. The Flashes scored a total of 33 points in their first four games, and not more than 14 in any of them.

On Friday night, they finished with 418 yards of total offense. Five players had at least 30 rushing yards apiece, and five different players scored.

Smith completed 4 of 8 passes for 127 yards and a touchdown, and added 66 yards and a TD on the ground. Teller led the team with 99 rushing yards on nine carries, while Jones finished with 30 yards and two touchdowns. Pierce had 32 rushing yards in addition to his 75-yard reception.

“The line looked really crisp this week. I think that was the biggest improvement this week, was the offensive line. We had a lot of guys that didn’t play last week that came back this week,” Bexley said. “Our running backs just ran hard, found those seams and really got out there.”