HOLLIDAYSBURG —Knoch coach Mike King found out the hard way you can play a near flawless game on defense in high school football — and still lose.

Friday night at Tiger Stadium, the Knoch Knights held Hollidaysburg to 77 yards of offense and two first downs — and lost — 7-3 to fall to 2-4 on the season. The Golden Tigers are now 4-2.

“That has been our season,” King said, whose club totaled 248 yards of offense, but turned the ball over three times to no times by Hollidaysburg. “It's hard to put a finger on one thing. It is a lot of little things. I felt our defense has played well all year. Our offense ... we gotta score ... we gotta put more than three on the board.”

Special teams killed the Knights in the first quarter as Hollidaysburg's Chris Gildea blocked a punt on the fourth play of the game.

Setting up shop at the 3, the Tigers needed just two plays to score on a 3-yard run by Jericho Hilling. Eric Miller's PAT made it 7-0.

“In a close game, you cannot describe how important special teams are,” Hollidaysburg coach Homer DeLattre said. “There is a reason why they call them special.”

Knoch moved the ball much more efficiently than Hollidaysburg, finishing with 15 first downs.

However, Hollidaysburg's defense forced six punts, picked off two Dan Farinelli passes and recovered a fumble.

“Our kids played hard. We just did not do enough to win,” King said.

The Knights' only points came on a Logan Tupper 23-yard field goal with 14 seconds left before halftime.

The rains came in the second half, and it began to pour in the fourth quarter. The Golden Tigers punted four times in the third quarter, and three more times in the fourth quarter.

Between the running of Cody Milsom and Cole Shinksy, Knoch got into Hollidaysburg territory.

However, with 2:10 to go in the game, on a fourth-and-one from the Hollidaysburg 40, Shinsky was stopped on a run play.

On a fourth-and-25 play with under a minute to go, Mitch Augustine picked off a Farinelli pass to end the game.

“Our defense was lights out. They were terrific,” King said. “Our kids gave us four quarters. We moved the ball, but we did not do enough in crunch time to win.”