In St. Aloysius’ second soccer game of the season, it came up victorious in a 5-1 win over Indianola Academy.

Connor Bottin scored three goals for the Flashes thanks to the 4-2-3-1-formation coach Scott Mathis implemented.

“My one striker (Bottin) can always find the back of the net,” Mathis said. “We were able to feed the ball to him and he was able to do what he was supposed to do. We have players who can shoot from the 18 or back and that’s what they were doing.”

Bottin said the only reason he scored his goals was from the help of his teammates, and the win will give the team more confidence as the season picks up.

“My players played me the ball through. I’ve been practicing all week and on my shots,” Bottin said.

In addition to controlling field position against the Colonels, Mathis was pleased with his team’s aggressiveness. They didn’t stand around or wait, but attacked the ball.

The Flashes have worked on developing their style of play, which is to spread the ball around the field. It’s worked well so far. In two wins, they’ve outscored their opponents 22-1 and gotten goals from a dozen different players.

“Working the ball around in this league when you have a wide field, it looks so good,” Mathis said. “But the problem with it is, the other team is booting the ball and we’re doing something totally different and we get out of our game and start playing theirs.”

Mathis hopes by the end of December, the Flashes reach a point where everything is coming together and they’re “rocking and rolling.”

One thing Mathis has to get done is shift the focus of his team from the physical appearance of their opponents.

“That’s the first thing they said was ‘look how big they were.’ I don’t care how big they are, it doesn’t mean they’re a soccer team,” Mathis said. “Don’t worry about them, worry about your play and that’s what they did. They came out doing exactly what they needed to do.

William Barrier scored Indianola’s lone goal in the 71st minute, and the Colonels were dominated in possession all game. Barrier’s goal was their first in four games this season.

Coach Ron Schlatter has a young, inexperienced team but knows they’ll grow and evolve as the season progresses.

“I think they’re getting better,” Schlatter said. “We’re doing some basic things wrong, we’ve got to get those corrected. We’re going to get better. They just need playing time.”

On the positive side, Schlatter felt his team also was aggressive.

“We won the ball some, defensively we played better so I was pleased with them,” he said.