Paul James quit coaching once. The way things are going now, it might be a long, long time before he ever quits again.

James and the amazing Washington Warriors tore the top-ranked Xavier Saints to shreds Friday night with a stunning 26-10 victory that was equal parts coaching genius and equal parts a phenomenal performance by the guys in red, white and blue.

The Saints and their homecoming crowd left the stadium with the same thought: Who were those guys?

Washington quarterback Reid Snitker, who engineered a miraculous 28-27 victory over Waterloo West last week, picked up right where he left off, only this time he didn't wait until the final two minutes to perform his magic.

The elusive Warrior hit 12 of 16 passes for 191 yards and three touchdowns against a Xavier defense that had surrendered only one touchdown all year.

He bolted for runs of 23, 21, 18 and 13 yards against a defense that was allowing only 88.8 yards per game.

He converted on 3rd-and-22 with a 23-yard jaunt. He found Clayton Bjornsen for a pair of TD passes in the first half. He hit Landen Akers with a 13-yard score in the third quarter. To cap it off, he rambled 13 yards for a touchdown in the final period as the Warriors soared to a 26-3 advantage at Saints Field.

Nobody does this to the Saints. Nobody. But Snitker did, with great help from his buddies on both sides of the ball.

"It was an amazing game," said Snitker. "We came in believing. We got up quick, 14-zero, and from then on we knew we could do this."

Xavier High School officials, acting cautiously in light of scary weather reports, postponed the sophomore game Friday night and decided to begin the varsity contest at 5 p.m., just when folks are normally settling into their seats to watch the 10th graders.

The Saints tried to let everyone know about the changes, but it was a late-arriving crowd and there were only several hundred folks in the stands when the game began instead of several thousand. There's usually a big celebration at Xavier when the Saints take the field, but this time it was a subdued reception for the home team.

Both teams had to scramble for the 5 o'clock start, but the crowd was flat. And so were the Saints.

"That's no excuse for us," said Xavier Coach Duane Schulte. "They (the Warriors) had to do the same thing and they came ready to play. And we didn't."

Washington lost its first three games of the season before getting a nice win over Linn-Mar in Week 4. Then came the amazing rally last week against Waterloo West, when Snitker threw two touchdown passes in the final 61 seconds to win the game.

And now this.

The Saints hadn't lost a regular-season game since 2011. They hadn't allowed a point in four straight games. And they got burned.

The Warriors (3-3) shook hands with the befuddled Saints after the game and ran toward the visiting bleachers to celebrate with family and friends. James, who coached the game from the press box, called them together with a big smile on his 59-year-old mug.

"Whatever you put your mind to, you can accomplish," he told his guys. "You proved it tonight. My hat's off to you. Great job."

Nobody was supposed to collect 17 first downs and score four touchdowns against the Saints, but the Warriors did. Nobody was supposed to complete 12 of 16 passes for 191 yards, but Snitker did. Nobody was supposed to burn Xavier's defensive backs with big receptions, but Bjornsen, Akers and Isaiah Nimmers did time after time.

"We gave a little blueprint there, didn't we?" James said to his team.

"The key in all this is to believe in each other," he said. "What did I say from Day 1? Believe in each other. It's a great feeling."

James was Washington's head football coach for 11 years from 1995 through 2005, but stepped aside after that 2005 campaign to become the school's athletic director. He'd been a successful coach - and before that a successful assistant coach for the Warriors - but wanted to pursue new challenges and perhaps build a little nest-egg for retirement.

That all changed last spring when Tony Lombardi, his successor as head coach, resigned under pressure and the job was open again. James latched on, soothed troubled waters at the school and now has the Warriors on a path for the Class 4A playoffs.

"He's done a great job," said Snitker. "He came in and knew exactly what he was doing. He was confident. We believed in him right away."

This was no fluke. Washington snapped the ball 55 times for 264 yards; Xavier snapped it 45 times for 204 yards. The Warriors had more first downs (17 to 13) and committed only one turnover. The Saints gave it away three times.

The Saints also hurt themselves with 12 penalties for a whopping 128 yards, many in key situations.

The Warriors kept attacking, even with a 20-3 lead in the third quarter. They knew the Saints might wake up at any time, and indeed the Saints made some noise in the fourth period after the deficit grew to 26-3 with 10:15 left in the game.

Quinton Scholer, battered and bruised by the Washington defense, hit Frank Hill with a 12-yard touchdown pass with 6:40 left and suddently it was 26-10.

The Saints got the ball again and drove to the Washington 13 with 3 minutes left, needing two touchdowns and a pair of two-point conversions just to tie, but as the Warriors showed last week, anything is possible.

It ended with an unusual play, however. Scholer completed a pass to Hill, but Nimmers ripped the ball out of Hill's hands for a turnover with 1:52 left.

The Saints used their timeouts and forced Washington into a punting situation with 1:36 left, but the Saints were called for roughing the punter and never touched the ball again.

Last week was a miracle for Washington, but this was no miracle. This was a convincing victory.

"Last week we made a bunch of mistakes, but we ended up winning," said Bjornsen, whose touchdown grabs went for 30 and 33 yards. "Today we came to play. We fixed a lot of mistakes and pulled it off."

"Last week really helped," Snitker added, "because we knew anything was possible."

Snitker, an agile and mobile quarterback, hurt Xavier with his rollout passes for much of the game, then burned the Saints with option keepers up the middle.

"He's just a gutty kid," said James. "He's an athlete and he doesn't like to lose.

"He was running around sometimes like his hair was on fire, because he had those big guys chasing him. But he was able to get the ball where he needed to and run when he needed to."

James was equally proud of his defensive players and rattled off their names: Royal Silver, Noah Fox, Mike Eken and Anthony Rodriguez-Bleakley (A-Rod) up front ... Jacob Bjornsen and Kyle Malcom on the edges ... The Vincent twins - Connor and Sam - at linebacker, along with Johnny Dobbs and Randall Nelson ... Akers, Clayton Bjornsen, Nimmers, Snitker and Tyler Burkle in the defensive backfield.

A lot of guys played well and held Xavier to 204 yards of total offense.

"I love coaching. And I always have," said James, who still serves as Washington's athletic director in his 38th year at the school. "These kids buy in and they work hard. They just do what you ask them to do. It's a great group of kids."

Xavier will fall out of the No.1 spot in the polls next week, but Schulte has never been too concerned with the rankings. The Saints are 5-1 and headed for the playoffs, but now they have to bounce back after a rare loss and use this as a learning experience.

"That's what we told our kids after the game," said Schulte. "You can take this and learn from it and then forget about it, or you can let it bother you. It's a big moment for our guys this weekend and how they show up on Monday and next week."

Xavier visits Waterloo West next Friday. Washington hosts Jefferson.

WASHINGTON 26, XAVIER 10

WASH       XAV
First downs              17            13
Rushes-yards          39-73       27-94
Passing yards           191          110
Comp-Att-Int        12-16-1    13-18-1
Fumbles-lost            1-0           6-2
Punts-avg.            5-25.4       5-31.8
Penalties-yards        9-66        12-128

Washington    7   7   6   6 - 26
Xavier            0   3   0   7 - 10

CRW - Clayton Bjornsen 30 pass from Reid Snitker (Gunnar Lenzen kick)
CRW - C.Bjornsen 33 pass from Snitker (Lenzen kick)
XAV - FG Ryan Persick 23
CRW - Landen Akers 13 pass from Snitker (kick failed)
CRW - Snitker 13 run (kick failed)
XAV - Frank Hill 12 pass from Quinton Scholer (Persick kick)

Individual Statistics

Rushing
Washington - Snitker 18-49, Dobbs 10-14, Taylor 6-9, C.Vincent 2-4, Team 1-minus 3.
Xavier - Miller 12-53, Sullivan 2-27, Grimm 1-15, Kortemeyer 3-7, Vega 1-2, Gardner 2-minus 2.

Passing
Washington - Snitker 12-16-1-191.
Xavier - Scholer 13-18-1-110.

Receiving
Washington - Akers 5-62, Nimmers 4-39, C.Bjornsen 3-90.
Xavier - Grimm 5-34, Hill 4-38, Gardner 1-20, Welch 1-11, Vega 1-4, Kortemeyer 1-3.