It was all about the drama at the Boys National HS Championships single-school quarterfinals as two games went to overtime.

Gonzaga put in a fairly workmanlike performance in dispatching St. Thomas Aquinas 29-0. Gonzaga scored relatively early, but took a while to really pull away as STA did a good job clearing their lines early.

Meanwhile, Herriman defeated Greenwich 36-15 after falling behind early.

"It was a strange game," said program director Jeff Wilson. "Greenwich is a very, very good team. They're fast, they execute well. And we couldn't get out of our way."

Wilson and Herriman Head Coach Derek Smith had hoped to rest HS All American forward Kalisi Moli, but decided midway through the game to send him in, and "he provided an immediate lift," said Wilson. "He made a couple of big hits and the intensity picked up immediately and the rest of the team responded."

Down 15-7 at halftime, Herriman exploded for five tries in the second half.

"What was good was we decided to be patient and just keep possession," said Wilson. "We trusted our pattern. The guys just looked as the coaches and said 'we've got this.'"

Moli and Leki Fotu started working off each other, and scrumhalf Noah Vaea raised the tempo and started getting the ball out of the rucks quicker, putting Greenwich under more pressure.

Those were the more clear results. Xavier v Penn could have gone either way. Penn scored early but then the middle of the game was mostly Xavier, as the New York team’s skill and snappy ball movement flummoxed the Penn team. Xavier led 22-10 at one point, and then Penn worked their way back with a try. It was 22-17, and then 29-17 after another Xavier try. Penn’s strength in the breakdown and power in the backs. Led by Casey Smith, Penn surged past Xavier to lead 34-29, only to see Xavier send the ball through the hands and score in the corner to tie it.

Leki Fotu passes out of the back of the scrum for Herriman against Greenwich. Tamara Tidey photo.

Overtime. Both teams had opportunities to score in the first half of overtime, but were stymied. Then, with barely a minute to go in overtime, Penn broke through in the backs, and then Daniel Afa'ese set up sub lock Bryant Anderson to score the winning try and, with the conversion, win 41-34.

It was even tighter in the other quarterfinal. Jesuit and Brownsburg battled to a tie at the end of regulation 21-21. They both kicked penalty goals in overtime, and ended overtime tied 24-24. That led to penalty kicks - an ending no one likes.

“Brownsburg was an exceptionally physical team,” said Jesuit Head Coach John Shorey. “They are so secure with the ball. They would go through 20 or 30 phases and not knock the ball on. We played as good as we can play and in my 19 years of coaching, I can’t believe it went down to kicks. My hats off to Brownsburg, they did a phenomenal job.”

Brownsburg was led by Dylan Johnston and Parker Lang.

“We decided we were not going to be intimidated and we would put the pressure on them,” said Head Coach Patrick Goduto. “We worked to protect the ball, but every time we did give up the ball Jesuit scored on us.”

So it came down to penalty kicks. Brownsburg missed their first kick, and Jesuit missed theirs. Then Jesuit kicked two more to win. The clinching kick was Luke Thayer, who also kicked the clinching victory for Jesuit’s B team last year in the NIT Tier II final.

“It’s tough to take,” said Goduto. “But the guys quickly turned around and started talking about facing Xavier.”

“This was a really tough game,” added Jesuit’s Shorey. “But we have to learn from this about missed opportunities.”

So the semis are set:

Penn v Jesuit at 5pm on Friday, and Gonzaga v Herriman at 6:30pm ET.

The consolation semis are Xavier v Brownsburg at 5pm, and St. Thomas Aquinas v Greenwich at 6:30.