Connor Bottin scored five goals and led the St. Aloysius Flashes to an 11-0 shutout victory over Porters Chapel Friday night. Lofton Varner added another three goals, followed by Graydon Bourne with two and Josh Collins ended the game with one of his own.

The youth, lack of communication and conditioning from the Eagles (0-6) held the team back as well as mental errors on the field.

“I saw a lot of mistakes, a lot of stabbing and not going up for the ball, just trying to win the ball out of the air,” Eagles coach Thad Wade said. “Definitely didn’t get to shoot a lot because we were busy getting bombarded.”

Although the Eagles might be young, they’re still trying to figure out how to play together as a team. Wade did see improvement from his team after intermission.

“I thought we played defense slightly better. I told them from the beginning of the game we can’t just sit there and stab the ball,” Wade said. “We caught them offside a lot, which is really good. Offensively we started passing a little bit more but we didn’t get the shots we wanted to.”

Despite the issues for the Eagles, Mallarie Ashley defended the net well with 26 saves in the game.

Flashes coach Scott Mathis acknowledge the effort from Ashley at the goal, but said his team is crafty when it comes to scoring.

“These soccer players I have, they just have a way of finding the back of the net. [Ashley] did the best she could for what she had,” Mathis said. “These guys were on tonight.”

Whenever St. Al went for the 50-50 balls, they came out on the plus side, which is important to winning games.

The Flashes found success on both of the offensive and defensive side of the ball but Mathis said his defense particularly played well.

Mathis moved players around in different positions in an effort to find different formations and to try new things with his team. He also tinkered with his lineup to close some gaps on the field.

“I’m trying to work on a formation where we don’t leave the middle wide open. The one team we have to worry about, Central Hinds, they’re not going to make those same mistakes,” Mathis said.

The Flashes are doing a better job of playing together.

“We’re trying to focus on playing as a team instead of chasing the ball around. Their tendency is to follow everything around because that’s what the other team is doing,” Mathis said. “It worked a lot better this team. We stayed with our game plan, passed a lot, had a lot of breaks that we needed and took advantage of them.”