It was the perfect call.

St. Joseph had never run the play in a game, but with the Knights tied with Serra of Gardena late in the fourth quarter Friday night, quarterback Brian McConkey pitched the ball to wide receiver Scott Cathcart on a reverse. Cathcart gained 47 yards to the Serra 19.

The play set up Thomas Sua's 4-yard touchdown run with 18.9 seconds left that gave the Knights a come-from-behind 20-14 victory in the CIF Southern Section Division X Playoffs. The Knights vaulted themselves into their third straight semifinal with their win at their own Al Maguire Field.

They'll try to break through after two straight semifinal losses. The Knights (7-5-0) take on Los Padres League rival Lompoc at 7:30 p.m. next Saturday at Al Maguire Field. Serra, the Del Rey League runner-up, winds up 7-5-0.

“It was a total shock to me,” when the Knights called his number, Cathcart said.

“We'd run that play in practice. We messed it up the first time, but then we started running the ball pretty good.”

Knights defensive back David Wolfe ruined the Cavaliers' last bid when he stopped Anthony Boyles after a 43-yard gain on a pass to the St. Joseph 15 on the final play. Boyles made an illegal forward lateral to Apiata Tuihalamaka. The Knights tackled Tuihalamaka anyway, they declined the penalty on Serra, and that was it.

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On his big play, “Brian did a good job on the pitch,” said Cathcart. “I thank the offensive line. They blocked really good on that play.”

The unit also blocked well on Sua's winning touchdown run. Sua ran through a hole left guard Collin Phillips and left tackle Sheldon Lechuga made, and then he took care of the rest. Sua broke through linebacker Marcus Hardaway's attempted tackle at the 1.

As for Cathcart's big run, “We try to put in a wrinkle or two on offense every week,” said St. Joseph coach Mike Hartman.

“This was the wrinkle.”

After Cathcart's big run, Sua ran behind Phillips and Lechuga for seven yards on fourth-and-inches from the nine. The Knights nearly met disaster when Sua fumbled a pitch. He fell on it at the 13, and St. Joseph scored three plays later. A five-yard facemask penalty against Serra that put the ball on the 5 helped the Knights out.

Serra most hurt itself when, with the Cavaliers ahead 14-7, a holding call wiped out Hardaway's 11-yard touchdown run late in the third quarter. Raul Sanchez missed a 25-yard field goal try shortly thereafter, and the steam seemed to go out of Serra after that.

“We hurt ourselves with penalties in the first half,” Hartman said with a shrug. Actually, there was just one call against the Knights in the first half. A pass interference call, which the Knights coaches questioned, wiped out a St. Joseph first down on the first series of the game. The Knights had to punt.

“They just blocked well,” Sua said of his offensive line. “We ran behind the left side a lot in the second half, and it worked out.”

Running to the left worked out particularly well for the Knights when they were down 14-7 early in the fourth quarter.

With the Knights facing third-and-three from their 27, Sua ran through a big hole on the, yes, left side and gained 46 yards. On third-and-two from the 20, Sua lunged forward just enough for the first down at the 18.

After a five-yard penalty on the Knights put the ball on the 23, Sua ran through a gap on the, you guessed it, left side, broke a tackle at the 20 and ran in. Sam Hawkes kicked the tying extra point with 10:10 to play.

Linemen Phillips and Drew Salazar, and linebackers Lechuga and Jason Acquistapace checked Serra's powerful offense, which had featured Hardaway's running this season, after the Cavaliers had marched 64 and 80 yards for first half scores.

Hardaway had 1,474 rushing yards going in. Sua had run for 1,269.

“They're a good team, and they run really hard,” said Acquistapace. “We figured they would give it to (Hardaway).” Serra did, just about every time on first down in the second half.

“If I had a player like that, I'd give him the ball too,” Hartman said. Hardaway, a rugged 5-foot-10-inch, 210-pound senior, led a Serra surge that kept Sua to 23 yards on nine carries in the first half. On offense, Hardaway had 144 yards, but only 54 on 14 carries after halftime.

“We went to a six-man line,” after Hardaway had gotten most of his yardage, said Acquistapace, who weighs all of 150 pounds. “Then we shifted to a five-man line.”

Whatever defensive formation the Knights were in usually worked in the second half.

St. Joseph's defense has been scored upon a lot at times this year. However the unit, which has had to make due in the late season without standout senior linebacker Philip Adam who broke his arm, not only stuffed Serra much of the second half, the unit set up the first score of the game.

With Serra facing third-and-nine from its 45, linebacker Tyler Kirchof put a heavy rush on Cavaliers quarterback Brent McCloud. McCloud threw the ball weakly off his back foot, and St. Joseph lineman John Sua grabbed the ball and took it to the Cavaliers 34.

Patrick Cusack beat Serra defensive back Duke Ihenacho to the corner of the end zone the first play thereafter, and McConkey connected with him for a touchdown.

After his team prevailed in a hard-hitting battle between two well-matched squads, Acquistapace said, “We all wanted to show everybody we could play like somebodies after people thought we were nobodies. We did.”

Nov. 26, 2005