JEFFERSON TWP — When is a loss a win?

When you are the Knoch football team.

In a game that featured 912 total yards, 10 touchdowns, three power outages and each team running a money play over and over again that made the Knoch High School football field look like a video game, the end certainly was fitting.

It took a defensive stand by the Knights to preserve a

loss

.

Yes, a loss — a 35-34 decision to Pine-Richland that gave Knoch a playoff spot on a strange, wacky and wet Friday night.

The game dripped with intrigue as much as it dripped with raindrops.

"I'd say people got their money's worth," said Pine-Richland coach Clair Altemus.

Here's what was at stake:

Knoch, Indiana and Keystone Oaks each had two conference wins going into the game.

Knoch had beaten Indiana; Indiana had beaten Keystone Oaks; and Keystone Oaks had beaten Knoch.

That set up a WPIAL tiebreaker system based on point spreads.

Knoch could make the playoffs with a win over the Rams or a loss by just a point. Indiana could make it with a win over Franklin Regional or a loss by fewer than five points. Indiana lost by 29. Keystone Oaks needed both Knoch and Indiana to lose and lose by more than a touchdown.

Got that?

Apparently Knoch coach Mike King and Altemus did.

Trailing 35-34, Knoch (3-6, 2-4) seemed content with letting Pine-Richland burn the final six minutes off the clock.

The Rams (8-1, 5-1) had other plans. They tried to score again.

Pine-Richland quarterback Jake Long snapped the ball with one second remaining in the game and handed off to Brendan O'Mahony, who rumbled from the Knoch 15 to the Knights' 1 before he was dragged down.

Had O'Mahony scored, Knoch would have been out of the playoffs.

"I was calling for a timeout, and everyone was telling me if we lose by (one), we'll get (into the playoffs)," said Knoch quarterback and defensive back Jordan Shoop. "We were just trying to keep them from scoring a touchdown.

"They weren't just going to knee it, and I don't blame them."

Altemus was in a sticky situation. Take a knee and win, but perhaps draw the wrath of Keystone Oaks, which would have received the final playoff spot had Knoch lost by more than one? Or try to score again and perhaps draw the ire of King and the Knights?

"It was a tough thing," Altemus said. "Knoch has a good program, and Mike King is a good friend of mine. I didn't want anyone to think we were knuckling under. I'm glad they got in."

King said Pine-Richland should have never gotten to the 1 to begin with.

But neither defense was particularly adept at stopping anyone.

"Hey, we made the play there at the end," King said.

"I never would want to play for a loss and our kids deserve a win," King added. "But I figured our kids needed to play defense there, and I let (the clock) run. That was my call, and I thought maybe we could make something happen and stop them."

There was no stopping Shoop.

The Knights quarterback was 13-of-19 for 228 yards and four touchdowns. He hooked up with Joel Berger for an 88-yard scoring strike in the first quarter to get the fireworks started and then hit him again on a 20-yard touchdown on a fade pattern on a fourth-and-8 play to put Knoch up 34-28.

He also threw a 5-yard touchdown pass to Eric Farmer and a 4-yard score to Carmen Shullo in the first half.

"I think he's a big-time athlete and he can play at the highest level," King said.

Most of Shoop's completions came on a play-action, bootleg pass that Pine-Richland seemed powerless to stop.

The Rams also had a play Knoch couldn't stop.

O'Mahony rushed 34 times for 335 yards and touchdown runs of 2, 2, 3 and 10 yards. Most of that damage came on stretch plays, either to the right or the left.

O'Mahony came into the game with 371 yards on 61 carries. He nearly had that many yards in one game.

"How many did he have?" Altemus asked. "Are you kidding? That may be a school record."

Knoch running back Curtis Howard might have been on his way to his own record, rushing for 150 yards on just six carries in the first half, but he suffered an ankle injury late in the second quarter making a tackle on defense and spent the second half on crutches.

Howard scored on a 63-yard run to cap a crazy first half and to give Knoch a 28-21 lead at the break.

"Curtis had a great game, and I think he was capable of that all along," King said. "It's a shame. It might be a broken ankle."

Ultimately, a bad snap on an extra point might have cost Knoch the game, but saved its season.

After Shoop's second scoring pass to Berger, the snap on the extra point attempt went awry, giving Knoch a six-point lead. Pine-Richland wasted no time going up by a point on its next possession.

Had the game gone to overtime, Knoch could have lost by more than a point.

"It was a great game," Shoop said. "I'll remember this for a long time."

With all the points rolling up on the scoreboard, it was no wonder the power to it went out twice.

While the Knoch staff was trying to fix the dark scoreboard, the stadium lights went dark in the third quarter.

It took nearly 30 minutes before play resumed.

It just added to the strangeness of the proceedings.

Now Knoch will wait until Monday to see who it plays. The Knights most likely will get a low seed.

It's the third time in four seasons Knoch has made the playoffs.

"The way we played against those guys, I think we deserve to go," King said. "There's an awful lot of people going home after this, too. We're going to get in there and you have to take it any way you can."