By JOHN JAMES MARSHALL, Journal Sports

MONROE – It’s hard to say for sure how Loyola’s John Sella imagined the first few minutes of his head coaching career would start, but it’s a pretty safe bet that what he got in Loyola’s 8-6 loss to St. Frederick Thursday night wasn’t it.

On a rain-filled night and a mud-filled turf, the Flyers came up with a defensive stop inside their own 5 to start the game. That was the semi-good news. The bad news was what followed.

A slippery-ball safety out of the end zone gave the Warriors a 2-0 lead, followed by a 38-yard scoring run by Owen O’Neal two plays later for an 8-0 lead.

Of Loyola’s next nine offensive plays after the safety, six were either a fumble, a negative-yardage play or an incomplete pass.

“They are tough,” Sella said of the Warriors. “They came out and punched us in the mouth first. We responded, but it took us too long to respond. We played hard but we just lacked focus at the beginning.”

The 8-0 lead by St. Frederick felt more like 80-0 to the Flyers.

“We were so worried about our footing and our spacing and getting the snap and all these little things instead of just firing off the ball and blowing them back,” Sella said.

The Flyers finally got some offensive momentum going on their fifth series when Mason Drake got loose for gains of 16 and 11 yards, but that drive stalled at the St. Frederick 31 on two incompletions.

Drake stayed busy for the rest of the night, getting 30 carries for 111 yards. But the biggest play of the game for Loyola came on a pass play when quarterback Bryce Restovich found senior Ben Brewer over the middle, resulting in a 57-yard touchdown with 10:37 to play in the game.

The Flyers went for a two-point conversion, but a roll out pass was batted down to keep the score at 8-6.

Unlike the first two quarters, the second half was filled with opportunities for the Flyers. A dropped pass in the end zone on second-and-goal came on a third-quarter drive that resulted in no points.

After the Brewer touchdown, the Flyers marched into Warrior territory twice with a chance to take the lead but had a fumble to end one drive and turned it over on downs on the other.

Loyola’s efforts to come back were hampered as much by curious clock-keeping as it was the total quagmire that the playing surface became. The Monroe officials crew, for some reason, did not start the 40-second play clock until after the ball had been spotted, rather than after the previous play ends (as is stated in the rule book). That resulted in almost a minute of actual time between offensive plays, helping St. Frederick chew up massive amounts of time.

The Loyola defense, which was stung early, held up throughout the rest of the game. It’s the first time Loyola has allowed single-digit points and lost the game since 2002.

“I loved the defense’s effort the whole time,” Sella said. “The effort has never been an issue, but sometimes we lack discipline and sometimes we lack focus.”

The Flyers will have their home opener Friday against Logansport.

Contact JJ at johnjamesmarshall@yahoo.com