St. Patrick's head coach Dave Greenwood had this worried look a few hours before the 13th annual Metro Bowl high school football championship at the SkyDome last night.

He had just finished a friendly pre-game chat with a rather robust, calm and confident Northern skipper Dan Dominico. However, Greenwood had also done his homework, having spent hours on game films and was impressed with the talent on the City of Toronto championship squad.

Last night, he found out first-hand.

Northern's Big Red machine not only staged a thrilling come-from- behind 30-21 victory over the defending champion Fighting Irish, but the Red Knights' defensive brigade kept the Sarnia school scoreless in the final half - something the losers hadn't experienced in years.

"They're too good a team from the films I saw and that made me very concerned . . . their conditioning was first class and that school just had too many great athletes," Greenwood said moments after his Sarnia squad had lost its first game in four years.

"That second half . . . they shut our running game down and then our passing. It's almost as if they were tapped into our head phones. I've never witnessed a performance like that before."

Peter Mitoulas booted a 35-yard field goal with 2:26 left in the game to give Northern its first lead at 22-21 and an announced crowd of 4,722 - mostly from Sarnia - knew the upset was unavoidable. The Red Knights never looked back.

A shaken St. Pat's quarterback Terry Kleinsmith was mesmerized by his three interceptions and getting sacked for the first time this season.

"They were all over us, just gave us problem after problem," he said. "None of our plays worked. They just took complete responsibility for the game and were confident. It was a strange feeling."

While 6-foot, 260-pound nose tackle Jason Alvarez made his presence felt, with two fumble recoveries for Northern, it was his key tackle on Kleinsmith - on a fourth down and one gamble at midfield with 5:27 to go - that was the turning point.

"That was a heck of an effort by him and the rest of the guys. . . . What can I say, the defence has done it for us game after game in the playoff round," said an overjoyed Dominico, whose team trailed 21-13 at halftime. "That gave the offensive team the confidence to take control."

George Trakosas grabbed a 27-yard touchdown from Northern pivot Jason Allen in the closing seconds, while workhorse running back George Zegas, chosen The Star's game MVP, had a field day, carrying the ball 16 times for 105 yards - many on key drives.

"We kept hurting ourselves early with stupid penalties and turnovers, maybe it was nerves," said Zegas, a rookie senior who fumbled on the first play of the game. "In the second half, we were a new team."

Scoring Summary
Northern 30	St. Patricks 21
Leon Thomas TD Troy Reynolds TD Mike Long TD George Trakosas TD Peter Mitoulas FG, 2C, S	Jon Needham  2TD Marchi Gabriele TD Brian Devlin 3C