BELLE FOURCHE - What a difference two weeks made for the St. Thomas More Cavaliers.

Dominated in every facet of the game in a 37-3 defeat at the hands of Belle Fourche on Oct. 23, few people gave the Cavaliers much of a chance to beat the Broncs in the quarterfinals of the Class 11A playoffs at Lou Graslie Field on Monday night. But that's exactly what the Cavaliers did, shocking the crowd of 3,500 with a 16-14 win to move into the semifinals against Winner on Saturday.

The Cavaliers dodged a bullet when Belle Fourche kicker Jordan Boston missed a 33-yard field goal with 3.4 seconds remaining that would have won the game.

"We had to come out and set the tone from the beginning of the game," St. Thomas More head coach Wayne Sullivan said. "That's something that we haven't done in the last couple of weeks."

The Cavaliers wasted little time in sending a message to the Belle Fourche players, crowd and, most importantly, themselves. Jeremy Kudrna took the opening kick of the game 35 yards to the Belle Fourche 30-yard line and the Cavaliers punched the ball into the end zone five plays later on quarterback Jared Jacobson's 2-yard sneak. The 30-yard drive eclipsed the total offense the Cavaliers produced (26 yards) in the loss two weeks ago.

"That was huge for us," St. Thomas More defensive coordinator Craig Nowotny said. "We set up as return because the last time they squibbed it on us constantly, so we set up a special return and broke it. When we got into the end zone it was just a huge lift.

"It made the kids believe that they could win the game."

The More defense - shredded for more than 500 yards two weeks ago - came out and sent a message of its own on Belle's opening drive. The Cavaliers forced a quick three-and-out, setting up a 39-yard Kevin Robb field goal that made it 10-0. The Cavaliers were a completely different defensive team on Monday night, holding the Broncs to 263 total yards after giving up 523 in the last meeting. The Broncs didn't even cross midfield until five minutes into the second quarter. Part of that was simply attitude and motivation on More's part. Part of it was scheme.

"Last time we didn't really come out fired up," Cavalier linebacker Jeremiah Brewster said. Brewster led the Cavalier defense with 14 tackles and two sacks. "This time we did. And we changed our defense up a little bit. We went back to a 4-4 from that 3-5 and I thought we did a really good job of stopping the run."

Belle Fourche running back Francois Barnaud still had 114 yards on 17 carries and a touchdown for Belle Fourche despite being limited by an injured left knee, but the Cavaliers did a nice job of containing Belle Fourche quarterback Alex Kling on rollouts, something that killed them in the first meeting.

But the biggest difference in this game from the last was the performance of the More offensive line. The Cavaliers managed just 12 yards rushing on 16 carries in that last game, but racked up 160 yards on this night, including 105 on 20 carries by Jacobson.

"We went back and watched film and we asked them on every play, 'Was this the best that you could have done?' and every answer was no," Sullivan said of the Oct. 23 loss. "We said all right then, if we're the football team that we think we can be, step it up and get it done.

At the beginning of the week I called the five linemen in and said that I'm putting it on your shoulders. If you control the line of scrimmage, we win the game. (Belle Fourche) embarrassed us last time. They stayed in a Cover 2 with seven guys in the box and absolutely embarrassed us. That was all I had to say to (the linemen)."

Robb set a school-record with three field goals for the Cavaliers, and More needed all of them as the Broncs nearly snatched the win away in the final seconds.

It looked like More had the game in the bag with 2:00 to play, but the Cavs' Zach Cimburek coughed the ball up at the Cavaliers' 36 with 1:48 remaining. But the Broncs couldn't get the ball in the end zone, and Boston's last-second kick was short and right.

The Broncs ended their season at 9-1 overall while More moves to 7-3 and will travel to Winner to play the Warriors.