Originally appeared on Vype.com.

HOUSTON – Katy has its winning formula dialed up to perfection.

Be efficient on offense, run the football with authority, and defensively shutdown the opposing team’s best player, while forcing turnovers.

Katy implored that strategy for another week, this time shutting down North Shore.

Deondrick Glass rushed for 92 yards and two scores, the defense forced three turnovers, the Tigers' offense scoring 17 points off of those, and Katy defeated North Shore 31-3 in the Region III-6A Division I Final inside NRG Stadium on Saturday.

“If you play discipline football and play well, you have an opportunity to get turnovers,” Katy coach Gary Joseph said. “We talk to our kids all the time about being unselfish. If they can be unselfish and do their jobs they have a chance to make plays within the system. That’s exactly what they did."

“They had an opportunity to make plays and they made plays. We just made a few more than they did.”

Katy advances to the program’s 17th state semifinals appearance. This is the Tigers’ third time in the last five years to go and the 12th time since 2000.

Katy will face the winner of O’Connor and Lake Travis next week in the state semifinals at Alamo Stadium in San Antonio next Saturday.

North Shore finishes the season at 9-4.

“They’ve been so opportunistic and that’s why they are a great football team,” North Shore coach Jon Kay said. “They do what you’ve got to do to win. Grind you out, they’ve got some playmakers and they can make the big play when it’s time. That defense is as good as I’ve seen.”

Once Katy got going, it was hard to slow down.

The Tigers raced out to a 17-0 lead, fueled by a pair of passing touchdowns by Austin Marshall, in the first 14:07 of the game.

Marshall finished the game 5 of 9 for 92 yards and two touchdowns.

“He did what he needed to do,” Joseph said about Marshall. “He sat there and managed our offense. He completed the play-action pass. He did a good job with that stuff. Kid’s done it all year long, I expected nothing less.”

While Katy was rolling, North Shore struggled.

On its first five drives—totaling 15 plays for 16 yards—North Shore just couldn’t move the ball, punting four times and fumbling it once.

“We struggled handling their front three and we knew that going in they do some great things with their linebackers and they take advantage of some one-on-one situations,” Kay said. “At the end of the day our 11 have to play their 11 and I think they won more of the one-on-one’s today than we did obviously.”

North Shore finally got going with 5:24 to go in the first half.

Sophomore running back Zach Evans sparked the offense with a 13-yard dash to open the drive. Freshman quarterback Dematrius Davis followed suit hitting his first two big pass plays of the game, after starting 1-of-6 for one yard, to get the offense moving.

Evans finished with 51 yards on 16 carries, while Davis went 10 of 23 for 159 yards and one interception.

North Shore got the ball down to the 10 of Katy before settling for a 27-yard field goal by John Villalobos, making it 17-3 at the half.

The second half was more of Katy’s dominance.

Glass got going with a 13-yard and three-yard touchdown runs in the final minutes of the third quarter, giving Katy the 31-3 lead.

In last season’s meeting with North Shore in the playoffs, Glass didn’t play because of a right leg injury.

“I don’t feel like I won it for the team,” Glass said. “I felt like the entire team was playing well. At first, they were making a couple good stops on us but we kept faith in our defense. We kept faith in what coach was telling us that we were going to keep doing. We didn’t change any of our gameplan, we made sure we stayed true to what we came to do.”

North Shore couldn’t mount anymore of a comeback down the stretch to fall in the regional final for the second-straight season.

Despite falling short again, North Shore has an extremely young team, only graduating 23 seniors off this team, that just placed a month of playoff experience under its belt.

“I think people lose sight of the fact that when you play for a regional championship you essentially have another month of practice,” Kay said. “That’s another spring. When you are as young as we are every opportunity, every second of practice you can squeeze in is an opportunity for you to get better.

“We’re just going to have to take advantage of this opportunity that we’ve had over the last month, couple it with our spring and see if we can’t get past this point.”

Katy is now one win away from its 15th state championship game appearance.

“It’s just one week at a time, that’s the only way to take it,” Katy defensive end Michael Matus said.

SCORING SUMMARY

Katy: Seth Small kicks a 42-yard field goal                       3-0 (3:58 – 1st quarter)
Katy: Austin Marshall to Jordan Patrick 6-yard TD          10-0 (:35 – 1st quarter)

Katy: Austin Marshall to Trey Brown 59-yard TD                        17-0 (9:53 – 2nd quarter)

North Shore: John Villalobos kicks a 27-yard field goal  17-3 (1:09 – 2nd quarter)

Katy: Deondrick Glass rushes in from 13 yards                24-3 (6:32 – 3rd quarter)

Katy: Deondrick Glass rushes in from 3 yards                  31-3 (0:18 – 3rd quarter)