It's become a trademark of Tyler Purvis that he saves his best game for the big game.

Last fall, he starred at wide receiver, defensive back and on special teams to help Lancaster Catholic's football squad claim district and state titles, and he earned all-state honors in the process.

Tuesday night, amid a playoff atmosphere at Lampeter-Strasburg, the Crusaders' senior forward pumped in 15 of his season-best 19 points in the fourth quarter to help Section Four front-runner Catholic hold off the Section Three-leading Pioneers, 60-50, in L-L crossover action.

"That kid's a big-time player," L-S coach John Achille said. "He's a heady player; he doesn't get rattled. And he really produced in the fourth quarter."

"He stepped up right on time," said Crusaders' coach Joe Klazas. "We were back on our heels and we needed someone to step up."

As good as he was, Purvis had help from his friends. Guard Will Schlosser also scored a season-high 19 and drained a game-best four 3-pointers in the process. Schlosser led all scorers with 12 first-half points, and helped keep Catholic (9-0 L-L, 12-2 overall) in the game early.

"Will's a great shooter, and he can drive to the hole," said Purvis. "He's just a great all-around player. We have a lot of weapons, so teams really can't key on any one guy."

"They have four, five guys who can knock down perimeter shots," Achille said. "We hadn't faced anyone like that."

Forward Paul Senkowski added 14 points — nine on treys — as the Crusaders earned their eighth straight win, stopped the Pioneers' win streak at five and made a statement of sorts.

"We wanted to prove we're for real," Purvis said, "(L-S is) Section Three. We wanted to show people we could come in here and play with the big teams."

Forward Taylor Groff scored 13 points and guard Garrett Terrell added 12 to pace the Pioneers (6-3, 9-5). L-S led 16-10 at the close of the first quarter and 24-22 at halftime, but lost the lead for good early in the fourth.

Purvis provided the difference. After scoring four points on 1-of-4 shooting from the field over the first three quarters, Purvis went on a personal run of five straight points starting with 5:35 left to put Catholic in front to stay.

And it wasn't just that he was scoring, but that he was scoring in a variety of ways — low post buckets, 3-pointers, layups in the lane, layups off of steals.

The latter came courtesy of a zone press that Klazas had used sparingly in the first half but employed heavily in the fourth.

The result? L-S turned the ball over four times and was outscored 25-16 in the final eight minutes.

"Our defense," Purvis said, "led to our offense."

"L-S was doing some things to take us out of our offense," Klazas said. "So we went to the zone press and let our defense create our offense."

"When you're bringing the ball upcourt and you see two, three guys coming at you, you have to get rid of the ball," Achille said. "We kind of dribbled right into it."

He paused.

"We didn't handle (the press) well."

As big as Tuesday's matchup of section leaders was — and it was the only such meeting on the L-L boys' schedule — both sides have key crossover games coming up.

L-S is at Annville-Cleona Thursday — never an easy place to play — and Catholic hosts Section One leader Hempfield on Saturday.

"It was a good to get a win in a playoff atmosphere like this," Klazas said. "It was a big game, but we have a lot of games left to play."