NATRONA HEIGHTS — Protecting a seven-point lead with under a minute to play, Jake McTighe finally put the Knoch Knights into the playoffs.

McTighe intercepted Highlands quarterback Mike Lenosky and returned the ball 65 yards for a touchdown, silencing the Senior Night crowd at Golden Rams Stadium, as the Knights triumphed, 35-21.

Highlands got the ball after Knoch's Adam Tuzikow had fumbled with the Rams unable to stop the clock, giving them a last-gasp attempt to tie. But McTighe sealed the win on the next play and put Knoch (3-5, 3-1) into the WPIAL playoffs.

Of course, after the first half, not many fans thought it would come down to a last-minute interception.

The Knights jumped out to a 21-0 lead on the Rams and had a 28-7 halftime lead behind three Tuzikow touchdowns.

Both Tuzikow and quarterback Kyler Kenyon had run for more than 100 yards in the first half, as the Knights totaled 249 yards on the ground.

Kenyon busted an option play for a 75-yard score, and Tuzikow had touchdowns from 1, 17 and 35 yards.

"That was the plan, but I'm a little bit disappointed we couldn't get our running game geared up in the second half when we needed it," Knoch head coach Mike King said. "That's how you put games away. But we want to run the football, and we put Adam Tuzikow at tailback this week and he did a good job."

It was in the second half, when the Rams (0-8, 0-4) tightened up on defense, that Lenosky led his team's comeback.

Lenosky sustained a leg injury at the end of the first half and had to miss the last two plays going into the locker room. All he did coming out was throw for 244 yards and two touchdown passes of 51 and 86 yards.

"He did a fantastic job," Highlands head coach Sam Albert said. "We max-protected him and got it out to our playmakers and they all did a great job.

"You can't ask for a better effort from our kids," he added. "We played a tremendous second half."

Gabe Clark and Seth Edwards each had more than 100 yards receiving and accounted for all three of the Rams' touchdowns.

But the great comeback was thwarted by a large lead and a few big defensive stands.

Even though the Knights gave up 354 passing yards, they held Highlands to 23 rushing yards on 14 carries and had some big holds to preserve the lead.

With just more than six minutes remaining, Highlands had first-and-goal at the 10. The Knights forced four incomplete passes, three of which were batted down at the line of scrimmage.

On fourth down, 6-foot-8 Knoch senior Micah Lio timed his jump just right and knocked down any attempt to get the Rams within seven.

"You build the lead that we had, your defense has to come through in critical situations," King said. "There are some things that need to get better. We have to shore up our pass defense, and that concerns me.

"We are going to come back and fix it this week. We've done it all year, and, hopefully, it will continue in the future."