After a month wandering in the football desert, the St. Aloysius Flashes found a welcome oasis filled with touchdowns and victory.

Brennan Williams rushed for 138 yards and three touchdowns, and the Flashes had five takeaways on defense as they routed Silliman Institute 38-0 on Friday night.

It was St. Al’s third win of the season, but first on the field. Its other two victories were forfeits, and it had only scored 12 points and one touchdown in five games.

Amazingly, for all of its struggles, St. Al (3-4, 2-1 MAIS District 3-5A) put itself in a position to make the MAIS Class 5A playoffs with this victory, and could find itself in first place in the district if it can beat Adams County Christian on homecoming next week.

“We were executing on both sides of the ball. It was fun to watch. It was a lot of fun to see our kids and our coaches get excited,” said Stacy Sizemore, who earned his first win as St. Al’s head coach. “Our kids always play hard, and to see them executing what we do and finally see some success at what we’ve been trying to teach them all along was fun to see.”

Padre Gray and Tristan Wilbanks also scored rushing touchdowns for the Flashes (3-4, 2-1 MAIS District 3-5A), who had 203 rushing yards as a team.

Chase Tucker caught four passes for 65 yards, and also led a strong defensive effort by racking up 10 tackles and a fumble recovery. Adam Francisco, Wes Warnock and John David Liggett all intercepted a pass, and Jax Oglesby had five tackles and a fumble recovery.

Silliman (1-2, 0-1) only had 125 yards of total offense.
Reed Bourne kicked a 30-yard field goal on the opening drive of the game, and went 5-for-5 on PATs.

“The kids came out and just executed. We came out and executed like we always do, we were just playing a team we could compete with,” Sizemore said. “It was just a good matchup for us.”