Over the span of a few weeks last summer, the St. Aloysius Lady Flashes turned into an engine of soccer destruction.

They mowed down opponents with ruthless efficiency and were rarely challenged on their way to the MAIS Division III championship. At the center of it all was a slim, 5-foot-5 mastermind with her hair held back by a black headband and a stone cold game face that generated fear and respect among her foes.

Sara McDaniel is her name, and she controlled the game like no other this season. The senior midfielder scored 25 goals, assisted on 26 more, and was the key to the Lady Flashes’ run to the program’s first state championship. Now, she’s the 2016 Vicksburg Post girls soccer Player of the Year.

McDaniel is the first St. Al player to win the award since Riley Griffith in 2011.

“It’s a very awesome opportunity to be given this. It means a lot to be given an opportunity to represent my school and my teammates,” McDaniel said.

McDaniel scored 19 goals as a sophomore and junior and made the Post’s All-County team in the 2014-15 season but, like all of her teammates, she thrived once St. Al moved from the Mississippi High School Activities Association to the Mississippi Association of Independent Schools last July.

In the MHSAA, St. Al had always been a pretty good team that had the misfortune of being stuck in the same division with two of the best in the state. Freed from that prison, it became a powerhouse in the MAIS.

The Lady Flashes went 11-0 in the regular season and won the District 1 championship. Only one game, an overtime victory over Indianola Academy, was decided by less than three goals.

The road got tougher in the playoffs, but St. Al still rolled through to the title by beating Kirk Academy, Starkville Academy and Hartfield Academy in the span of a week.

“We knew it was going to be a different year from the very start. We were going to do this because it hasn’t been done here before,” McDaniel said. “When we kept beating people 13-0, we started thinking we might win it all.”

McDaniel was a major reason for the blowouts. She recorded six multiple-goal games, and had nearly as many with multiple assists. She had six assists in a 9-0 win over Laurel Christian and five in an 11-0 rout of Lee Academy.

Beyond being merely a scoring threat, however, McDaniel emerged as a leader. She took the reins when necessary, backed off and distributed the ball when needed, and always kept the team in line on the field. Seventh-grader Madelyn Polk scored more goals than McDaniel — 32 to 26 — but McDaniel was the team’s engine.

“Sara was always a leader in how she plays, but speaking out was hard for her. She took that role and went with it this year,” St. Al coach Scott Mathis said. “She controlled that middle better than anybody. She could have controlled it for my boys team. Almost every 50-50 ball, she got to.”

McDaniel said she was aware that, as both a senior and a midfielder, she didn’t have a choice but to become more vocal and a team leader.

“Especially as a senior leading all the younger kids and trying to be an example and a leader, without being a self-centered person,” she said.

McDaniel was selected to the MAIS All-Star team following the season, but she’s still got more soccer ahead of her. She’s signed to play next season at the University of Mobile, an NAIA school in Alabama.

It’s a perfect bow to a senior year that has seen her rise to the top of the soccer mountain.

“It was a very memorable year because we won the state championship and I was able to sign, and we went undefeated,” McDaniel said. “So a pretty great great year.”