Perfection was earned in 1 minute and 43 seconds on Friday night.

No, it wasn't crunch time. It wasn't the final minutes of a dogfight. It was only the end of the second quarter, but the Nipomo fans were rockin' and the Titans sensed they had a shot at playing spoiler to the undefeated Knights of the Los Padres league.

The Titans had just closed the gap at 14-7 in a game they had to win to salvage any chance at a playoff at-large berth.

But there's a reason these Knights had come out on top against Pioneer Valley, Templeton and Morro Bay in tightly contested battles this season to remain a perfect 6-0 in league.

They were about to run the perfect two-minute drill, and the ultimate buzzkill going into the half.

Covering 87 yards in that precious time-span, the Knights hit the locker room with all the momentum and Thomas Sua ran through Nipomo in the second half for a 33-14 win in both teams' final regular season game.

This was nothing new for St. Joseph. All the two-a-days and monotonous practice drills made this a routine.

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“We work on our two-minute drill every week,” coach Mike Hartman said. “Normally, you use it at the end of a game when you're down. But the thing is, we didn't have to change anything in our offense. It wasn't like running four wide receivers was different. We ran our regular offense.”

Knights quarterback Shawn Winters had gone 1-for-7 for only 10 yards up to that point, and the Knights had put most of their offensive focus on getting Sua, their 202-pound running back, the pigskin.

But Winters and wide receiver Scott Cathcart started to play football as if it was just the two of them tossing practice passes after school. First, it was a precise 14-yard bullet. Then it was a critical 28-yard toss, and finally a 10-yard sideline-route. Cathcart capped the drive with an amazing connection to John Gregory.

“He (Gregory) just stabbed it in the air and got one foot down,” Hartman said of Gregory's 21-yard touchdown grab.

The touchdown sent the Knights into the locker room up 20-7, and Hartman had discovered a flaw in the Nipomo gameplan.

Hartman noticed that the bulk of the Titan defense would follow his tight ends when they went into motion. So, he decided to send his standout running back the other way, to the weak side.

Sua simply had his way. He looked like a freight train in the first half. He was a freight liner in the second, busting through the Nipomo defensive line.

Sua finished with a season-high 267 yards and three touchdowns on 27 carries.

“Everything I do, it's because of my offensive linemen,” he said, adding the names of his blockers in order. “PJ Cano, Drew Salazar, Jimmy Friedlein, Josh Bingham and Jon Thomas.”

Sua then paused, smiled, and added, “Oh. And my brother John Sua.”

That frontline wasted no time opening up space for the elder Sua in the second half. On St. Joseph's third offensive play, Sua ran for a 50-yard touchdown and made the score 27-7.

“Sua's not a breakaway runner, but he's a bruiser and he's hard to tackle,” Hartman said. “He wears teams down.”

It was running back Brandon Ancheta that scored the Knight's final touchdown before Nipomo's Garrett Frisby ran a score in from one-yard out.

With the win, Hartman was proved wrong on his preseason prediction. Hartman had figured no Los Padres team would go undefeated.

“With Lompoc out, we figured it would be a very competitive league. And we had tight games against Pioneer Valley, Templeton and Morro Bay. Usually you get one game a year like that. We had three that could have gone either way,” Hartman said.

Before running the two-minute drill to perfection, St. Joseph jumped out to a 14-0 lead on Sua runs of 10 and 30 yards. Nipomo quarterback Mason Sperakos scored on a one-yard keeper to close the gap.

Sperakos finished 7-of-13 for 73 yards, including 32 yards to wide receiver Sebastian Dechert and 34 to Steve Otto. Otto also finished with 86 rushing yards. Billy Chambers had 32.

For St. Joseph, Winters threw for 111 yards on 13 pass attempts. Cathcart caught four passes for 64 yards.

The Knights know they will host a playoff game on Friday, but will find out which team they will play in the opening round of the CIF Southern Section playoffs on Sunday.

Nov. 11, 2006