Damien (12-7) led by three after Brian Donohoe put in his own rebound on a counter attack with 6:09 left in the third quarter for his third goal of the match.

But Ayala answered four consecutive Damien goals with three of its own, Cameron Rehm's score tying the game 8-8 with 5:34 to play. Each of Damien's goals in the final 3:07 came on a man advantage.

"I think we got tired there at the end," Ayala coach Paul Marceau said. "Against Montebello earlier this season, we came back from four goals down and just ran out of gas. The same thing happened today."

Ayala's Tyler Sissoyev had three goals and two assists. The senior sandwiched a goal with assists to erase the three-goal deficit late in the game.

Rehm had two goals and Jeffrey Molina had a goal and two assists for Ayala.

Ayala goalie Troy Kurz registered eight saves against a Damien team that pelted him with an uncharacteristically-large number of shots. The Ayala game plan called for its defenders to drop off the outside shooters early in the shot clock in order to provoke shots.

"We never felt comfortable," Damien coach Andrew Gates said. "Their game plan threw us for a loop. It took us out of our comfort zone, out of our patient zone, and we took a lot of early shots."

The teams were never separated by more than a goal until Damien's four consecutive scores turned a 5-4 Ayala lead into an 8-5 Damien advantage.

Ayala opened the scoring with a Jeffrey Molina goal. Then the teams traded scores until it was 5-4 Ayala with 2:10 left in the first half.

Donohoe's goal off an Ayala turnover evened the game 5-5 with 1:33 to play in the first half. With eight seconds remaining in the second quarter, Pacheco scored off an Eric Osterberg assist during a man-advantage to give Damien its first lead.

Damien's Nick Schofield continued the flurry, winning the battle for a loose ball in front of the Ayala goal with 6:33 left in the third quarter to give Damien a 7-5 lead before Donohoe's third goal of the game completed the four-goal run.

"We thought we could win this game," Marceau said. "We knew we had a team that could compete with them even though Ayala hadn't beaten them since the 2003 CIF championship game."

Ayala will have to wait until Nov. 1 for another opportunity.

"We haven't played a bad game with Ayala in eight or nine years," Gates said. "When we were up 8-5 they could have rolled over, but they didn't.

"This was a huge game for both teams in terms of the standings."