Three weeks ago when Wiliams Field and Queen Creek ended the regular season playing for the San Tan Region title, the game went down to the wire in a 16-9 Williams Field triumph. In the rematch Friday night, it was over in half the time.

Capitalizing on three first-half turnovers to the tune of 17 points, No. 2 Williams Field broke out to a 24-0 lead at the half and coasted home with a 37-12 victory over No. 6 Queen Creek in a 5A semifinal game at Campo Verde High School.

Williams Field remained perfect at 13-0 and advances to play 12-1 Centennial in the 5A final on Saturday Nov. 26 at 2:30 p.m. at University of Phoenix Stadium. No. 5 Centenniai knocked off top-seed Cienega, 56-21. Queen Creek, losing for the second time in three weeks to Williams Field, finished the season at 10-3. It will be Williams Field's third trip to a title game. The previous two were in 2010 and 2014. Both defeats.

“We said one of the things we had to do better was win the turnover battle,” Williams Field coach Steve Campbell said.

Turnovers and defense certainly tilted the outcome in Williams Field's favor in this one, but so did the running game that improved three-fold from the first time they met. And that was despite 11 false-start penalities.

Senior running back Josh Alexander used running room on the edges much of the night to pile up 117 yards on 16 carries and two touchdowns. Williams Field rushed for only 58 yards in the first meeting. Alexander had 44 that night. 

We definitely said, ‘Hey, we have to do a better job of using our strength versus quit trying to go right into their strength,” Campbell said. “We tried to be more straight down the middle the first time we played them and didn’t have a lot of success. One of our advantages is speed. Their advantage is their size and physicality.”

The three first-half takeaways for Williams Field were lethal. The Black Hawks recoverd a fumble on the game's first play and took possession at Queen Creek's 16. Williams Field settled for a 43-yard field goal by Brandon Ruiz for a 3-0 lead with one minute gone in the game.

Late in the first quarter, Williams Field scored a touchdown produced by its offense to make it 10-0. It marched 67 yards in 10 plays with quarterback Zack Shepherd tossing an 11-yard TD to Max Fine. Alexander was the workhorse of the drive., carrying  six times for 32 yards.

The other takeways occurred late in the second period and the game was ripped open in eight seconds. because of them.

Queen Creek quarterback Devin Larsen fumbled at his own 10 and William Field pounced on it. Two plays later Alexander's first TD run from 6 yards out made it 17-0.

After Ruiz sailed another kickoff deep in the end zone to force Queen Creek to start again at its 20, a Larsen pass was tipped and then intercepted on the deflection by cornerback Deandre Ector. Ector raced 24 yards to the end zone to make it 24-0 with two minutes left in the half.

Queen Creek made one trip into Williams Field territory in the first half -- midway through the second period after a 59-yard run by the Bulldogs Jace Koester. (159 yards rushing on 28 carries unoffically). But Williams Field's defense held on a fourth-and-one at the WF 13 to halt the threat. 

Queen Creek scored for the first time with 5:19 left in the third quarter on a 32-yard TD pass from Larsen to Armon McGuire to cut the lead to 24-6. Williams Field answered  with a TD set up by a long kickoff return by Justis Stokes. Shavez Hawkins 1-yard run  pushed the margin to 30-6. An interception by Zane McKinney two plays later led to Alexander's second TD from 11 yards out a minute later ballooning the lead to 37-6.

Larsen finished the night completing 14 of 25 passes for 194 yards and two TDs with two picks. He tossed a 57-yard scoring strike to Garrett Duke late in the final period.