In a long football season, even the worst teams will put together at least one solid game. Do it twice, and it becomes a positive trend. A third time is the mark of a good team.

St. Aloysius is trending upward.

The Flashes have turned their season around 180 degrees in the past two weeks. Following a wretched 0-3 start in which they were outscored 119-24, they’ve lost a hard-fought game against Dexter and blown out Hartfield Academy in back-to-back weeks.

St. Al’s defense has allowed just 23 points in the past two games and forced five turnovers against Hartfield. The offense had 291 rushing yards and 418 total yards in the win over Hartfield. The Flashes’ record is still just 1-4 overall, and 1-3 in Region 4-1A, but heading into this week’s showdown with archrival Cathedral (2-2, 1-2) things are looking up for the first time this season.

“Our kids are just playing real confident. It carried over from last week, and it couldn’t have happened at a better time. We’re just excited. Everybody’s contributing and we’re doing really well,” St. Al coach B.J. Smithhart said. “We’ve got to keep stringing them together. This team is real young, but they’ve got a lot of fight in them.”

The win over Hartfield was a complete, dominating performance by the Flashes.

Right from DeMichael Harris’ 70-yard return of the opening kickoff, which set up a short touchdown run by Elliott Bexley, they controlled the action.

St. Al never trailed, and mixed big plays — nine plays from scrimmage went for more than 10 yards, in addition to two long kickoff returns by Harris — and sustained drives on offense. The Flashes engineered five drives of seven plays or more. Three ended in touchdowns and the other two in missed field goals.

Matching the team’s best offensive output since a 41-16 win over Salem on Sept. 9, 2011, was perhaps its most dominant defensive performance of the past two seasons.

The Flashes held Hartfield to 146 yards in the first three quarters. The Hawks gained 70 yards in the fourth quarter against St. Al’s second-string defense, but didn’t score.

St. Al also intercepted Ryan Wesson four times and recovered a fumble at the 3-yard line in the second quarter. The fumble recovery by Sage Lewis stopped a drive that could have given Hartfield the lead, and was followed by a 97-yard scoring drive that put St. Al ahead 19-7.

“They’re lights out. They’re doing what we thought they could do at the beginning of the year. They just need to keep it up,” Smithhart said. “They’re just playing with confidence. I know I’ve said it three or four times, but when you play better and see good results, you just get the confidence from seeing it work.”