Porters Chapel came into its game against Adams Christian not wanting to slip up and leave its playoff fate in the hands of the fickle wild-card winds.

So it didn’t.

Cole Smith tied a single-game Warren County record with four touchdown receptions – three on passes from Hayden Hales – Michael Busby threw for one touchdown and ran for another, and PCA crushed ACCS 44-14 on Friday night to clinch a playoff berth for the third straight season.

PCA (6-3, 2-1) clinched second place in District 4-AA and will face either Centreville, Bowling Green or Central Private in the first round. ACCS (4-5, 2-2), one of the highest-ranked teams in the MPSA’s power point standings not to have clinched an outright bid, is still alive for a wild-card berth.

&#8220It’s definitely good to get it out of the way,” said Hales, who completed 3 of 4 passes for 137 yards, all on touchdowns to Smith. &#8220It was an overwhelming win. We didn’t want to have to deal with the wild-card.”

Smith turned in an overwhelming performance.

He only caught four passes, but took all of them for touchdowns. He scored on receptions of 9, 56, 72 and 21 yards to join Vicksburg High’s Michael Sweet as the only players in Warren County history to catch four touchdown passes in one game. Sweet caught four against Jackson Central in 1973.

Smith also tied Culkin’s Tommy Akin for the most career receiving touchdowns with 18. Akin caught that many while playing for Culkin from 1955-57. Smith, a senior, still has at least three games to go.

&#8220That felt so good,” Smith said. &#8220At the beginning of the week, coach (Randy) Wright told me I needed five for the record. I didn’t think I’d get four tonight.”

And nobody thought this game would be this one-sided. But from the time Robbie Simms returned the opening kickoff 77 yards to the ACCS 9-yard line, it was all PCA.

Moose Carney scored on a 9-yard run on the next play and PCA tacked on 16 points in the second quarter to take a 23-0 halftime lead. Smith caught two TD passes – including a 56-yarder on a reverse flea flicker – and Busby booted a 28-yard field goal.

PCA also got to ACCS quarterback Brian Sanderson, who stayed in the game, but was clearly not 100 percent, ACCS coach Bobby Marks said. That forced Marks to alter the gameplan and go with a run-oriented offense that had little chance of escaping such a big hole.

And Marks didn’t even try.

The Rebels held the ball for 17 1/2 minutes in the second half without throwing a single pass. They scored two touchdowns on an 18-yard run by Luke Brumfield and a 13-yard run by Matthew Guedon to get as close as 30-14, but PCA made them chew up the clock.

The two scoring drives took 16 plays and 15 plays, respectively. When Guedon scored to cut it to 30-14 with 7:29 left in the game, PCA had taken only 20 offensive snaps to that point.

PCA only ran 11 plays in the second half.