Mexico was stuck in the middle on Thursday night in Jefferson City.

The Bulldogs kept losing on the 50/50 balls in the midfield area in their regular season game at district foe Helias Catholic, resulting in Mexico losing 8-1 and being outshot 49-11 to snap a three-game winning streak. Goalkeeper Emille Scanavino stayed busy most of the night, making 22 saves out of Helias' 30 shots on goal, and Mexico (7-15) managed to send seven shots on goal toward the Crusaders’ goal, with Brendan McKeown scoring the game’s first goal in the 11th minute.

Helias (5-17) scored two goals in the final five minutes of the first half to take a 3-1 halftime lead. The Crusaders had a hat trick from Coen Loethen and two more players with two goals.

Head coach Bill Gleeson said Helias is always a team that plays a physical brand of soccer and was able to do that effectively Thursday, despite going into the day with four wins — three less from last year’s total. Mexico was outscored in the previous two meetings 13-4.

“They were very physical,” Gleeson said. “Refs weren’t calling a whole lot so we should’ve had a few calls. It is what it is. Helias is a tough team always and very physical.”

Mexico did grab the lead early in the first half after McKeown scored off a rebound for his second straight game with a goal. Helias’ Loethen scored off a rebound eight minutes later to tie and then the attack by the Crusaders was relentless. Miles Vollet split the defense to give Helias a 2-1 lead in the 36th minute prior to Ryan Crane putting one in from the right side a minute later.

Most of the scoring opportunities Helias had during the night started in the midfield, Gleeson said, on balls that were airborne and up for anyone to get a body part on the ball. Helias won those battles to get ahead and stay ahead.

“Where we lost, I think, was in our midfield,” Gleeson said. “That’s where a lot of times we lost our momentum, our push and then it came back for us right away.”

Gleeson said the “very skilled, very fast” Crusaders knew exactly what to do with the ball from that point on. He said Scanavino was “very good” and helped limit the damage to prevent an even more lopsided contest.

“We got caught on the back side a lot,” Gleeson said. “Our back side defense wasn’t marking the players coming back. They would just cross it over and kick it in.”

Mexico switches its focus to Saturday’s 2 p.m. Class 2 District 4 Tournament game against Wright City (10-8-1), who the Bulldogs defeated 4-2 a little more than a week ago. The Bulldogs own a 4-6 regular season record against district opponents after Thursday’s loss at Helias.

On Wednesday, Mexico received some good news by learning that three Bulldogs made the North Central Missouri Conference second team. Scanavino took the second goalkeeper spot after Hannibal’s Parker Terrill was picked for the first team, and defender Declan Gleeson and midfielder Fernando Guzman made the all-NCMC team for the second straight year.