Three weeks shy of the anniversary of an upset loss at Northern Lebanon that cost them an outright section title, the Crusaders exacted their revenge Friday night.

In a big, big way.

Catholic ran over, around and through the Vikings en route to a dominating 61-0 win at Rossmere Stadium.

"We came in thinking about last year, all week," said Catholic senior lineman Nick Schmalhofer. "We had this one circled. Especially for me, since I got hurt in this game last year. I had something to prove, we all had something to prove."

The Crusaders improved to 4-0 in the section and 6-1 overall. The Vikings (2-2, 5-2) were no slouch, coming in with just a 1-point loss to Annville-Cleona.

Anyone doubting that Catholic quarterback Kyle Smith is the real deal should simply look at his first half of work.

Better yet, narrow it down to the second quarter alone.

That's when "Smitty" took over. Leading 6-0 after one, the lefty completed 7-of-12 passes for 173 yards and ran three times for 44 more.

Three of his passes went for touchdowns - eight yards to Travis Jankowski, 60 yards to Tyler Purvis and 34 yards to Kevin Cotchen — and one of the runs (36 yards) went for another TD as Catholic exploded for 28 points and broke open a 34-0 halftime lead.

"He gets better and better every week," Crusader coach Bruce Harbach said of the highly-touted junior. "He's a student of the game."

Smith finished with 192 yards passing (9-of-14) and 62 yards rushing on five carries - all in the first half.

The four touchdowns came in a span of 12 offensive plays as Catholic ran up 300 total yards in the half, compared to just 14 for the Vikings.

"They're a very explosive football team," said Northern Lebanon coach Jack Beidler. "We wanted to survive early and we didn't do that."

The Vikings didn't pick up a first down until the 4:18 mark of the third quarter and that came via a Crusader pass interference penalty.

Eventually, NL earned two more first downs, at the expense of Catholic's second- and third-team defense.

"That was definitely the mission," explained Schmalhofer. "We're looking for shutouts each week. That's always the goal of the defense."

The Vikings came in averaging 257 yards rushing per game, but were held to just 35 on 28 carries.

"We knew we had to stop the running game, plain and simple," Harbach said. "If they're going to beat us, they had to beat us by the pass."

That wasn't happening. Two Northern Lebanon quarterbacks combined to complete zero passes in seven attempts. They did throw two interceptions.

The Crusader offense, which added four more rushing touchdowns in the second half, ran for 310 yards on 35 carries.

Coupled with Smith's passing yards, the Crusaders laid a 502-spot on the Vikings when it came to total yards.

"It took us seven weeks, but that's the best all-around game we've played," said Harbach. "That thing's been circled for 11 months now. It was on the board all week and we had the tape running all week and the kids knew what was at stake."