HELENA, Mont. - The Carroll Football team entered Saturday's NAIA Football Championship First Round game 11 years removed - to the day - since their last postseason win, but ended the lengthy drought with a 42-35 triumph over (17) St. Thomas (Fla.) on Valley Bank Field at Nelson Stadium.

Donning purple lids as an homage to the 1985 team, the school's first team to host an NAIA postseason contest in Helena, the 14th-seeded Fighting Saints (9-3) erased a decade of heartbreak, beating the Bobcats (7-4) in front of a small - but lively purple-clad crowd.

Carroll's last postseason game in Nelson Stadium saw the Saints lose a 17-point fourth quarter advantage to eventual national champion Southern Oregon. 11 years later, they found themselves with the same 17-point cushion - and this time they got it done.

"It's cool to win a playoff game - here, for the first time in a long time." said Carroll captain linebacker Eli Aby.

"This was one of our goals. I think we've really worked hard as a team, and come together as a team. You could see our leadership on display today - there were a lot of times where that game could have gone one way or another, and our guys just kept making plays."

The game featured plenty of fireworks; five total turnovers, big momentum swings, electic returns, jaw-dropping touchdown catches, and a Hail Mary to boot - fitting for the pair of Catholic institutions.

Much like the lone other meeting between the two schools back in 2023, three Carroll interceptions helped propel the Saints to victory. Caden Hansen (Dillon, Mont. / R-SO) picked-off STU's Keely Watson on the Bobcats' opening drive, setting up the first points of the game just moments later as Kaden Huot (Helena, Mont. / JR) hit Carson Ochoa in the back corner to put Carroll on top 7-0. Frontier Conference - West Defensive Player of the Year Braeden Orlandi (Valley Springs, Calif. / R-SO) snatched a bobbled ball away from a Bobcat receiver in the fourth quarter, rumbling 47 yards to the one-yard line - setting up an Xzavier Ford (Glendora, Calif. / SR) rushing TD.

Aby secured Carroll's third interception of the game in the fourth after Denavion Ali (Denver, Colo. / R-SR) forced a fluttering ball out of Watson's hands - again leading to a Carroll score.

"It was awesome." said Aby "I mean, the takeaways all came at really big times in the game - which was huge. Cricket's (Hanson) was a huge start for us there in the first half, Braeden's was huge, the one I had was big - those were all big time plays."

St. Thomas attempted more passes against the Saints than any other team in the last five seasons. Watson finished the game with 34 completions on his 61 pass attempts for 381 yards and a pair of touchdowns, while the Bobcats finished with just 52 yards on the ground as a team.

Huot was solid throughout in his first postseason appearance, coming up with an answer for every Bobcat advance. While the junior transfer didn't have the most eye-catching stat line, he did more than enough to get the win. Huot completed just 13 passes for 166 yards, but four of them went for six, while adding 52 yards on the ground as well. His four-TD passing day made him the first Saint since Tyler Emmert in 2005 to throw 30 or more touchdown passes in a single season.

The most exciting of the four was a halftime heave that bounced off a crowd into the opportunistic hands of Chris Akulschin (Gig Harbor, Wash. / R-SR) with no time left on the clock. The Saints' 21-17 lead at the break followed a 65-yard return from Connor Sullivan (Kalispell, Mont. / R-JR) that set up Huot with one second left, and an opportunity to take the deep shot into the endzone.

For the second week in a row, the Carroll ground game got their wheels rolling. Peter Minnaert (Boise, Idaho / SO) finished with his first career 100-yard rushing game, tallying 116 yards on 10 carries and a bruising 16-yard score in the third. 

With just under four minutes left in the game, Ty Wilkinson (Pocatello, Idaho / R-SO) made a sliding grab in the back of the endzone, his fifth touchdown of the season, that put the Saints up by three scores at 42-25. 

Ten points from the Bobcats over the final 1:11 would make things interesting, but Orlandi capped his stellar afternoon with a recovery on the Bobcats' final onside kick attempt to secure the win for Carroll.

The Saints move to 43-18 all-time in the NAIA Football Championship Series - extending their record number of postseason wins by any school at the level. 

"It just feels good to get over that hump." said offensive lineman Andrew Devine "The cool thing is, we're not done. We got a lot left more to prove. We played a pretty good game, but we can get a lot better - that's for sure."

Immediately after conclusion of the win, the NAIA announced second round pairings. The Saints will not have to travel very far, as they head 68 miles South for a tilt with rival Montana Tech next Saturday at 1 p.m.