GAINESVILLE, GA -- Jonesboro has strung together win after win after win this season thanks to hard-nosed, in-your-face defense. Why stop now? The Cardinals travelled 67 miles north and put on an absolute show of defensive force to advance to the Final Four with a 50-35 win on Thursday night.

But the start of the didn't have the feel of a typical Jonesboro night. The Cardinals were behind the eight-ball after the first quarter, 15-13. The sold out crowd was into the action and Jonesboro knew they had to impose their will.

Boy, did they.

Jonesboro held Johnson to 20 points over the next three quarters. Johnson's 35 points is the lowest the Knights have scored under head coach Jeff Steele, dating back to the  2004-2005 season (that's as far back as we could find for the team's scoring history).

The biggest hero of the night for Jonesboro was junior guard Jordan Qualls, who had the task of face-guarding Ty Cockfield.

"Unbelievable what he did," an elated Jonesboro head coach Daniel Maehlman said after the game "That guy (Cockfield) is a Division I guard. He's averaging 30 points a game and he had what (11 points)? I mean, that's unbelievable."

Cockfield 28.6 points a game this season and was one of the top overall scorers in the Peach State. Cockfield had only been held under 20 points three times this season. Haysville (NC) held him to 16 on January 3. Cockfield was 5-16 from the floor in this contest.

"We play defense before we play anything," senior forward Tracy Hector, Jr. said after the game.

"The bottom line is this - that's all we work on. If practice is an hour and a half, then we spend an hour and 15 minutes on defense," Maehlman said. "We'll spend the other 15, we'll play a little offense. The first half was a little rough and in the second half we didn't really make a whole lot of adjustments, we just re-emphasized the game plan from the get go."

Hector, Jr. and Deantre Mack each scored 15 points while MJ Walker and Austin Donaldson each pumped in eight. Jonesboro was outstanding in the final three quarters of play and did so in the face of a terrific crowd.

"We've been here before. We have the experience and when we play this kind of competition, we know what to do and how to execute," Donaldson said. "We came here with one goal and that was to win."

Jonesboro will now play Liberty County (24-4) on Saturday at West Georgia in Carrollton at 4:45. The winner advances to the Class AAAA state championship game.

Johnson had 13 points from senior Rod English, who had a strong effort in the defeat.