Pat Morgans has been involved in football as a player or coach for more than three decades — and he can’t remember experiencing anything comparable to what he witnessed Friday night.

The first-year Marian head coach was talking about his team’s incredible fourth quarter against rival Panther Valley.

How incredible was it?

Consider these facts:

• Marian trailed the Panthers 12-7 heading into the fourth quarter — and ended up posting a mercy-rule victory.

• Marian scored more points in the last 9:02 of Friday’s game than it had scored in its previous 23-plus quarters — that’s 278 minutes and 58 seconds — this season.

• The 41 points Marian scored in the quarter were the most in any quarter in the school’s 64-year football history. If you’re counting, that’s 695 games or 2,780 quarters.

By the time it was over, the Colts had turned the 12-7 deficit into a 48-12 victory.

“We got contributions from our offense, defense and special teams during the quarter,” said Morgans. “It was a total team effort. We had a number of kids step up for us and make big plays, and then things just snowballed.”

Did they ever.

Marian scored six touchdowns in just over nine minutes — including three defensive scores. Seth Paluck, who Morgans said jumpstarted the Colts with a big run on a fake punt early in the final quarter, scored two touchdowns. Lineman Zach Falls added a couple of “big guy” touchdowns when he recovered an offensive fumble in the end zone and then added an interception return for a score. A Max Nolter pick six, and a scoop and score fumble recovery by Dalton Rubert, accounted for the other TDs.

“We did a great job of executing in the fourth quarter,” said Morgans. “We blocked and tackled well, our backs ran hard, our defensive linemen did a great job of keeping containment ... the kids executed all the fundamentals that we’ve been preaching since day one.

“Because of that, some big plays resulted. I think our kids saw that if you do things the right way, good things will happen.”

While the fourth-quarter explosion garnered a place in Marian history, Morgans is hoping it also makes a mark on its future.

“I think it was important for our confidence to have something good happen,” said Morgans, whose team had scored just 38 points the entire season heading into last week’s fourth quarter. “It had been a few games since we had anything positive that we could build on.

“But we left the field after Friday’s game a lot more confident team. Now, we have to carry that forward over the second half of the season. I’m hoping we’ll be able to look back on that quarter as being the spark that ignited a strong finish for us.”

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300-CLUB ... Jim Thorpe’s Justin St. Hill joined an exclusive club when he rushed for 325 yards last week against Blue Mountain.

The Olympian senior became just the eighth player in the Times News area (over the past 30 years) to eclipse 300 yards rushing in a game.

Lehighton’s Robbie Frey accomplished the feat twice in 2005, gaining 324 and 305 yards in two different games.

Others to top 300 yards (since 1987) include: Tamaqua’s Tyler Hope (350 in 2013) and Jim Hope (331 in 1989), Lehighton’s Joe Semanoff (315 in 2000) and Vinnie Andrews (301 in 2002), Northern Lehigh’s Nate Farber (338 in 2014), and Pleasant Valley’s Mike Mitchell (301 in 2016).

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SORE ARM ... Palmerton’s Tekoah Guedes aired it out last Friday in the Blue Bombers’ game against Notre Dame.

The senior quarterback attempted 46 passes in the contest, completing 15 for 210 yards.

The last time a player in the Times News area threw that many passes in a single game was Oct. 10, 2008 when Jim Thorpe’s Corey Cinicola was 22-of-47 against Pocono Mountain West.

The game against the Crusaders featured an amazing 162 plays from scrimmage — 70 by Palmerton and 92 by Notre Dame. Among Times News teams the average number of combined plays per game is 101.1.

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DOUBLE PICK-SIX ... In Marian’s comeback win over Panther Valley last Friday, the Colts returned a pair of interceptions for touchdowns.

Max Nolter and Zack Falls both came up with pick-sixes in the fourth-quarter rally.

Over the past 25 years, that marked just the sixth time that a team has two interception returns for touchdowns in the same game. The others include Northern Lehigh in 2004 (Matt Sutjak and Frank Gnas) and 1996 (Frank Lieckel and Keith Blose), Northwestern in 2014 (Taylor Breininger and Harry Hall), Palmerton in 2014 (Tre Nelson and Dominic Shivone), and Lehighton in 2015 (Nick Chambers and Tyler Crum).

As mentioned above, Friday’s victory for Marian was a comeback. The Colts trailed 12-7 after three quarters before exploding for 41 points in the final frame.

Marian had lost 23 straight games it trailed after three quarters. The last time it won when entering the fourth with a deficit was Oct. 20, 2012 when Shenandoah Valley held a 17-14 advantage and the Colts used a fourth-quarter touchdown to gain a 21-17 victory.

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TWO POINTS BETTER THAN ONE ... A week ago, it was noted that Lehighton’s Cody Scherer had converted seven two-point conversions so far this season.

Scherer didn’t tally any more against North Schuylkill last Friday, but the Indians did receive two-pointers from Ben Schatz and Nate Petit-Clair to boost Lehighton’s total to 14 this season.

Over the past 25 seasons, only one other time has an area team converted more two-point conversions.

In 2009, Panther Valley finished the season with 17 two-pointers. Lehighton’s 14 so far matches the total of Tamaqua’s 2013 team, as well as the 2010 Palmerton club.