BROCKWAY — Less than 13 minutes away from a fourth straight District 9 title, Karns City's boys soccer team received a blow it never recovered from.

St. Marys' Vinicius Nunes scored on a shot in the 68th minute, beating Karns City's Jake Weckerly to the goalkeeper's left to tie Tuesday night's Class AA championship game at 1-1.

It was the beginning of a three-goal surge in the span of just two and a half minutes as the Dutchmen prevailed, 3-1 at Frank Varischetti Field.

“With the way we were playing defense, I thought we had a good chance of pulling this one out,” said Gremlin coach Jim Grenninger. “That first goal, it was like someone punched our boys in the stomach. We tell them not to let the other team know when we're down (emotionally), but our body language, we started to sag.”

The Dutch (16-2-1) were primed to take advantage of it, too. Nunes scored again in the 69th minute and Jackson Lindemuth made it 3-1 just 82 seconds later.

“It was getting scary for a bit there,” said St. Marys coach Russ Micale. “Karns City had the lead and the momentum.

“It's been a crazy year. We've had several games that were tight late, then we'd score a few quick ones to pull away. We were doing everything tonight except putting the ball in the net. That first goal got us going.”

It is St. Marys' first district crown since 2000.

Both teams managed scoring opportunities in the first half. In that span, Weckerly and Dutch keeper Caleb Barackman both made four saves and had to come off their line several times to thwart other threats. Both teams also felt the frustration of having shots hit the crossbar or post.

It was Karns City (12-8) that was first rewarded for the offensive effort. In the 54th minute, senior defender Nolan Riley took a corner kick to the right of St. Marys' net. The ball found the head of sophomore midfielder Nate Rondinelli and Barackman was unable to make the stop.

It was the only goal the keeper allowed while making eight saves.

“We created more pressure tonight than I thought we would,” Grenninger said. “We'd go for five- or six-minute stretches where we were getting a good push. Against Punxsutawney (a shoot-out semifinal win), they did a good job against our attack and we basically scored on three set pieces.”

Weckerly finished Tuesday's game with nine saves. He defended against seven corner kicks from the Dutch while the Gremlins took six corner kicks.

The Gremlins returned just four starters from last year's 20-1 team and the graduated talent took a high percentage of 2016's goals with it.

“Our boys showed a lot of heart this season,” said Grenninger.