Savannah, here comes the Saints again. The Carroll College football team earned its third straight trip to the NAIA national championship game in Tennessee with a thrilling 14-10 win over Azusa Pacific on Saturday afternoon at Nelson Stadium.

"It is amazing," said Carroll's center Kyle Baker. "With all we have been through, sometimes this season the offense has looked bad and sometimes the offense has looked good, but we are going back (to Tennessee)."

The Carroll offense was not in top form for much of the game, but it was impressive when it counted the most.

The Saints mounted their drive of the season with six minutes left in the game and trailing 10-7.

Carroll marched 82 yards with its season on the line, ending the drive with a 1-yard touchdown plunge by Tyler Emmert with 1:23 left in the game.

"We had to score or we were done," Emmert said. "We had to pull out all of the stops and go all out."

Carroll's all-out, all-or-nothing drive was successful due to short screen passes which turned into big gains.

The Azusa Pacific defense, which had been stout all game long, was unable to stop a succession of screen plays on the drive.

"They switched up well," Azusa coach Peter Shinnick said. "There's a reason they've been in this (national championship) three times in a row. We just ran out of time."

Emmert was able to find Zach Bumgarner twice for screens, and he found Jed Thomas on a slip screen. In all, the three plays added up to 46 yards.

"The screen has been one of our main plays all year and if we run it right it is very successful," said Bumgarner, who was named the offensive player of the game.

Bumgarner would catch two more passes on the drive and his final one set up the Saints on the 11-yard line, where they turned to Thomas and Emmert.

Carroll ran three straight times, setting up a fourth-and-1. Van Diest rolled the dice and instead of going for the tie went for the win with less than two minutes to go.

Thomas rolled off a 4-yard run to get the first down and two plays later Emmert added the winning score.

"We needed to win or lose the ball game with our offense on the field," Van Diest said.

That offense was bottled up for much of the game, until the last six minutes.

"You have to tip your hat to their defense," Emmert said. "They dominated us for four quarters until the final drive."

The Saints' offensive highlight for the first quarter and a half was a fluke play in which a tipped pass landed in the arms of Carroll center Baker for a 14-yard gain.

Special teams were key for the Saints in their 12-0 win over the Cougars in October, and they shook Carroll's offense out of its early-game doldrums in this contest as well.

Late in the second quarter, the Saints backed the Cougars deep in their own territory, and on the ensuing punt Kevin McCutcheon ripped off a return of 30-yards setting up Carroll on the Azusa 18-yard line.

Three plays later, Carroll had its first score of the game when Emmert found Kendall Selle for a 10-yard score with 2:23 left in the half.

It is the first touchdown a tight end has caught for Carroll this season.

"We have a bunch of great receivers and normally I am happy blocking for Tyler Emmert and Jed," Selle said.

Selle ran a nice post pattern and was able to get behind the Cougar defense and found himself wide open about 5 yards deep in the end zone.

That, and a field goal by Azusa's Mike Bentantcourth, accounted for all of the game's scoring for the first three quarters.

The Cougars put together their best drive of the game late in the third quarter when they mixed the run and pass well setting up their first touchdown of the game.

The big play of the 72-yard drive was 28-yard pass from Sean Davis to Micah Staley.

That put the Cougars on the Saints' 4-yard line, but it took Azusa three plays to score.

Cougar running back Ben Buys tried to bull his way in three times, but he was stopped short of the goal line.

On the third try, the Cougars were whistled for a false start putting them in a third-and-6 situation, However, Davis responded by hitting tight end Ricky Burgan for the touchdown.

Azusa then went for the jugular attempting an onside kick that Cameron Tucker recovered setting them up again inside Saints territory.

The Cougars, however, were turned away on three plays and never mounted another serious threat to score.

"Two great defenses and they ended up getting a few more points," Shinnick said.

The win was Carroll's 11th straight playoff win and their sixth win in a row this season.

"You can't discount anyone on this team," Van Diest said. "Everyone who suited up helped us get to this point."

The win also sets up a showdown with St. Francis, of Fort Wayne, Ind., in the championship game. The Saints downed St. Francis 38-14 in last year's semis.

"We are playing a team, physically that is the best we will ever see," Emmert said. "We are going to have to play mistake-free football."

The national championship game is at 11 a.m. MST on Dec. 18 at Jim Carroll Stadium.

Saints 14, Cougars 10

Azusa Pacific 3 0 0 7 -- 10

Carroll 0 7 0 7 -- 14

First Quarter

Azusa Pacific-FG Betancourth 40, 6:17.

Second Quarter

Carroll- Selle 9 pass from Emmert (Miller kick), 2:23.

Fourth Quarter

Azusa Pacific-Burgan 6 pass from Daivs (Betancourth kick), 13:48

Carroll-Emmert 1 run (Miller kick), 1:21.

A-4,237.

Azusa Carroll

First downs 15 13

Rushes-yards 38-100 32-090

Passing 133 200

Comp-Att-Int 27-15-2 31-19-0

Return Yards -3 135

Punts-Avg. 9-39 8-37

Fumbles-Lost 0-0 1-1

Penalties-Yards 6-46 3-39

Time of Possession 25:11 36:59

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

RUSHING-Azusa, Buys 17-63, Lampkin 10-31, Peltier 4-13, Miller 2-5, Herrera 1-1, Daivs 4-0. Carroll, Emmert 12-35, Thomas 13-36, Grosulak 3-11, Barnett 1-5, Pancich 1-3, Team 2-0.

PASSING-Azusa, Daivs 15-27-2-133. Carroll, Emmert 19-31-0-200.

RECEIVING-Azusa, Miller 6-49, Staley 5-78, Allen 1-14, Burgan 1-6, Peltier 1-(-3), Sweeney 1-(-11). Carroll, McCutcheon 4-49, Bumgarner 4-44, Wigen 4-28, Michaelis 3-27, Thomas 1-24, Baker 1-14, Selle 1-9, Barnett 1-5.