FOXBOROUGH – The Catholic Memorial football program can finally party like it’s 1978.

Thanks to an impressive 42-18 win in the Division 2 Super Bowl over King Philip on Thursday night at Gillette Stadium, the Knights earned the school’s first state title in football in 43 years, finishing a perfect 13-0.

It’s the 12th state championship for legendary head coach John DiBiaso. The Knights offense was a runaway freight train all year and had one more big performance left, putting up 446 total yards of offense, led in large part by Carson Harwood’s 135 yards on the ground and a four touchdown performance from JC Petrongolo.

King Philip was making a fourth appearance in a Super Bowl in the last six seasons and finish another great year at 9-3.

“Last night was Christmas Eve,” said DiBiaso when asked what the last few nights were like waiting for this game. He also got an early present.

“I don’t even want to tell you…I woke up in my bed and I thought I was sweating. My dog sleeps with me, he peed in the bed. I said to to my wife, ‘normally if you step in dog poop it’s supposed to be good luck. I don’t know about sleeping in dog poop, but that’s what happened. My night was very eventful…we take what they give us and they’re a great team. My hats off to coach Lee

Early on the Warriors hung tough with the Knights, even taking a 3-0 lead early in the second when Matt Kelley capped a 14-play drive with a 27-yard field goal. During a scoreless first quarter the KP defense played about as perfectly as it could, forcing a turnover on downs on CM’s first drive and then Jake Sullivan forced a fumble at the KP 2 with CM facing 4th-&-1 on its second possession. Luke Danson recovered it in the end zone, leading to the field goal drive. Unfortunately, when a team has as much talent as Catholic Memorial does, you can only hold them down for so long.

Five plays after the field goal, Kole Osinubi grabbed a 52-yard touchdown on a beautiful ball from JC Petrongolo. Jack Sokol added the PAT to make it 7-3 with 8:12 left in the second. After another lengthy nine-play drive for the Warriors, CM forced a punt and took over at its own 20 with 2:47 to go in the half.

With just 16 seconds to go, Petrongolo (7/14, 137 yards, 4 TD) hit Matt Rios in the back right corner of the end zone with another perfectly thrown ball and another Sokol extra point gave the Knights a 14-3 halftime lead. The Knights racked up 238 yards in the first 24 minutes. KP had 105 total yards but were just 3-for-7 on third downs.

“This has been the goal since I walked into school and came as a freshman,” said Petrongolo. “Our team executed tonight and it’s just perfect, I wouldn’t trade this for the world.”

KP opened the third quarter with an impressive nine-play march, but ended up getting backed up against the chains and faced a 3rd-&-11. A KP receiver had a sure touchdown just bounce off his fingertips downfield and the Warriors were forced to punt, letting a golden opportunity go by the board. 11 plays later, Datrell Jones punched in a 4-yard touchdown run and the Knights pushed it to 21-3 with 3:43 to go in the quarter.

The Warriors hung tough and cut it to 21-10 with 11:50 to go in the game on a 4-yard touchdown run by Rudy Gately. The momentum didn’t last long though, as CM scored 12 seconds later when the Knights pulled out the old Amendola/Edelman throwback play from the Baltimore playoff game in 2014. This time, it was Drew DeLucia hitting Jaedn Skeete for a 66-yard bomb to push the lead back to 28-10.

As you’d expect from a Brian Lee-coached team, the Warriors would not go away. Nine plays later, Charlie Grant punched in a 1-yard TD run and a two-point catch for Crawford Cantave cut it to 28-18 with 8:57 to go. Unfortunately for the Warriors, the Knights offense was a bit too much to handle and Osinubi caught another touchdown moments later, this time from 18-yards out with 6:26 to go, pushing the lead back up to 35-18.

Skeete picked off Grant on the next snap and returned it for a 40-yard touchdown but there was a block in the back. Still, the Knights ended up holding on comfortably in the end, with Osinubi adding a 55-yard pick-six in the final minute to cap off the big night.

Coach DiBiaso has won plenty of Super Bowls in his illustrious coaching career, but this one was undoubtedly one of the sweetest for the old ball coach.

“It means a lot to coach Mike Milo and I and my wife because we experienced this at Everett,” he said. “To be able to help bring it to this school is special. I’m so happy for the kids.”