"I went to the La Salle-Neumann game and sat with the Neumann-Goretti fans, cheering with them," Murphy said. "It was pretty nerve-racking to see our season hanging in the balance on that one game. We had no control."

When Neumann-Goretti handled La Salle, Murphy didn't want to let the golden second chance slip away.

And he didn't. Murphy went 2-for-3 with two RBI and helped break up La Salle's C.J. Burns' perfect game in the fifth inning, rallying Prep to a 4-0 victory over the Explorers at Widener University yesterday afternoon in the Catholic League Class AAAA final .

With the win, St. Joe's Prep will represent the Catholic League in tonight's Class AAAA city title game. The Hawks will face Central High, the Public League winner, at 7 p.m. at Campbell's Field in Camden. Win or lose today, yesterday's win guaranteed the Hawks a spot in the PIAA tournament as a District 12 representative.

Burns retired the first 10 Prep batters in order before junior Greg Brooks broke up the perfection with a single up the middle. Designated hitter Perry Russom followed with a liner to right before Murphy, or "Smurph," as he is called, drove in Brooks.

"We started off a little cold - maybe because we hadn't played in 4 days - but I knew that we had the hitters to do it. I knew we would eventually come around," Murphy said.

Murphy picked up the slack for the Prep on a day when its top four hitters went an uncharacteristic 1-for-11. He brought in Russom again in the seventh inning as an insurance run.

"I had a rough game against Neumann on Friday and everyone else picked me up," Murphy said of the Prep's hitting karma.

"He has been an unsung hero for us this year," Rupertus explained. "There are guys on our team with more extra-base hits and RBI, but Sean has had some big at-bats for us. He comes through when we need him.''

La Salle stranded 10 men on base, squandering the chance to tackle the Prep early with Burns' blazing start. The Explorers threatened with multiple baserunners in the first and third innings but could not take advantage.

The Prep, meanwhile, adjusted to get active in the beginning of the count against Burns.

"He threw a lot of offspeed pitches for strikes in the beginning of the count," Rupertus said. "I told them to not be afraid to swing early. The 0-2 counts were killing us."

Kyle Mullen threw 123 pitches (81 for strikes) over seven full innings to complete the back-from-the-dead miracle. Before Tuesday, there were no games left on the schedule for the Prep. Now there are at least two.

"It is a dream for us to make it to this game," Murphy said. "We have wanted to get to the state tournament since we first learned 2 years ago that we could be in it. We'd rather have won the Catholic League, but we'll take it any way we can get it." *