For the first time in a generation, St. Aloysius will play for a football state championship.

The Flashes beat Coffeeville 35-6 Friday night at Balzli Field to win the Mississippi High School Activities Association’s Class 1A North State championship. They’ll face archrival Cathedral Friday at 11 a.m. at Mississippi State’s Davis-Wade Stadium in Starkville for the state title.

It’ll be St. Al’s first championship game appearance since 1981, three years before the current MHSAA classification and playoff system even came into being.

St. Al won a number of Capital Athletic Conference championships — roughly the equivalent of a state title — in the 1970s, before the playoff system was adopted, and had five undefeated seasons in the decades prior while playing as an independent.

This also marks the first time since Warren Central won the Class 5A title in 1994 that any Warren County team has reached a football championship game.

“I don’t even think I’m alive or awake right now. I just want somebody to pinch me and wake me up,” said St. Al senior lineman Drake Dorbeck, who recovered three of the seven fumbles the Flashes forced against Coffeeville.

St. Al (13-1) made a surprising run to the Class 1A semifinals in 2013 before losing at home to Smithville, but has proven this season that its previous success was no fluke. Friday’s victory was the 13th in a row for St. Al, which lost its season opener to Cathedral and has not been defeated since. The 13 wins are a single-season school record.

The next challenge is Cathedral (13-1), which beat Nanih Waiya 28-19 in the South State championship game Friday night in Natchez.

St. Al and Cathedral are no strangers to each other. The two Catholic schools have shared a heated rivalry spanning decades, and have been frequent opponents in every sport. Cathedral won their regular-season football meeting this season, 42-31 on Aug. 22, and has beaten St. Al five times in a row overall since 2010.

Both St. Al and Cathedral will be trying to win their first state championship.

The familiarity between the teams will add some zip to what was already going to be a memorable day.

“That’s even better. We’ve been wanting a rematch with them, because we knew going into the beginning of the year that we were still young and trying to get our feet wet. This is great. We would love a rematch,” St. Al quarterback Connor Smith said. “It’s a rivalry game for the state title. You couldn’t ask for something better.”