The St. Aloysius Flashes had an easy time disposing of Stringer in Game 1 of their Class 1A playoff series.

Maybe too easy.

Stringer answered back with a strong pitching performance by Trenton Stringer and an offensive surge in the middle innings that propelled it past St. Al 5-2 in Game 2 Friday night.

The Red Devils’ victory sets up a winner-take-all Game 3 tonight at 6 at Bazinsky Field.

“We couldn’t make adjustments at the plate early in the game and made errors in the field. We had opportunities to get out of an inning and made an error,” St. Al coach Derrik Boland said. “Pat (Murphy) pitched well, just couldn’t get plays behind him.”

St. Al (14-9) had 16 hits and rolled to a 9-1 victory in Game 1 on Thursday night, but struggled to put anything together for much of the game Friday.

Murphy’s RBI single in the top of the first gave St. Al a 1-0 lead. Ben Welp then hit into an inning-ending double play, and the Flashes only had two more baserunners until the sixth.

St. Al left runners at second and third in the sixth inning, and two more runners on in the seventh. It did score a run in the seventh on a two-out RBI single by George Tzotzolas, but Derek Dolan lined out to end the game.

Tzotzolas and Murphy each had two hits and an RBI for St. Al.

Murphy allowed eight hits and two walks in six innings on the mound, and struck out four.

“They made adjustments to how they pitched us, and we didn’t adjust to that,” Boland said. “They just changed the sequence of pitches and we didn’t adjust.”

Stringer (16-9) took the lead in the second inning on a run-scoring fielder’s choice by Delayne Herrington and an RBI double by Austin King. It tacked on single runs in the third, fourth and fifth to stretch the lead to 5-1.

Trenton Stringer allowed eight hits and walked three in his complete-game win, but kept the Flashes to just the two runs and struck out 11 batters. Eight of St. Al’s nine starters struck out at least once.

Trenton Stringer also went 2-for-4 with an RBI and a run scored at the plate.