When Lancaster Catholic arrived here Saturday and got the lay of the land — the freezing, snow-covered land — it knew that this day would be about nothing more than survival.

Mission accomplished.

Catholic slugged its way past Loyalsock, 19-13, at Kemp Memorial Stadium in a quarterfinal game of the state Class AA football playoffs.

It means the Crusaders (13-1) advance to the state semifinals for the second straight year. It means they get another shot at Philadelphia West Catholic, which eliminated Catholic in the semis a year ago.

That's a big deal.

"We definitely want another shot at them," Catholic lineman Ross Hall said, "We've been thinking about that for a year."

Or, not.

"We'll play whoever's there," Hall's coach, Bruce Harbach, shrugged.

Loyalsock (10-4) wasn't really expected to be there Saturday. The Lancers are a gritty bunch that for much of the year was considered a step behind Towanda, among District Four Class AAs.

But Loyalsock took off at midseason when it moved burly senior Stephen Stopper from tailback to quarterback.

The Lancers did not have a complex, multi-weapon offense, but Stopper was a load to bring down and had a big arm. Catholic, meanwhile, had to dramatically scale back its playbook because of the weather.

Harbach came in thinking he could throw the ball and started the game in an empty-backfield, shotgun, five-receiver formation.

But it's hard for even Kyle Smith, Catholic's record-setting quarterback, to throw wet footballs.

"We started throwing on first or second down just so we could have a fresh, clean ball," Harbach said.

The weather kept Smith from having his customary monster numbers, but he threw for three touchdowns, thereby tying the state single-season touchdown pass record set by Clearfield's Chad Kroll in 1994, with 49 of them.

Smith twice hit Quinn Houser, who had a big day on both sides of the ball, for second-quarter TDs that seemed to give Catholic control, up 13-0 at halftime.

Loyalsock opened the second half with a nine-play, 80-yard drive, helped by a pass interference penalty, the score coming on Stopper's 31-yard pass to Frankie Pagana, who out-jockeyed a Catholic defender in the end zone.

It was a grind the rest of the way. Loyalsock increasingly got away from the ground game in lieu of Stopper launching high-risk, high-potential-gain passes.

He completed just seven of 22 to his teammates, and completed four to Crusaders, two of those picked off by Rhys McCall.

The decisive sequence came in the middle of the fourth quarter, when Catholic fumbled the ball away but immediately got it back when Houser intercepted Stopper.

Now the Crusaders went to work on the Lancers and the clock. From its own 45, Catholic ran it 10 straight times, Jordan Stewart, Quinn and Smith sharing the load, to get to a fourth-and-8 at the Loyalsock 16.

Then Harbach called time to get a fresh ball in the game, and Smith delivered his best throw of the day, a strike to Tyler Purvis for a 16-yard TD.

The PAT try failed, as most of them did in the blizzard, but Catholic led 19-6 with 3:22 left.

To Loyalsock's credit, it wasn't quite over.

Stopper hit Pagana for a 21-yard score with 2:03 left, but the Lancers had burned their last time out two plays previous.

A mis-hit onside kick try sailed out of bounds, and the Crusaders milked the play and game clock to perfection. Then they flopped on the white turf and did snow angels.

You don't hear much about Catholic's defense, but the D had as much of a hand in this one as anybody. It held a big, physical team to 176 total yards, and less than four yards per rushing attempt.

"Our coaches told us the D was going to have to step up today," said Hall, whose wild yellow socks were found around the football again and again.

"They had a great quarterback, great running backs. We knew we had to step up, and we did."