Knowing what's coming in a football game is one thing. Doing something about it is clearly something else.

For proof, look no further than Thousand Oaks High's 49-28 win over Santa Barbara on Saturday night.

Thousand Oaks knew Santa Barbara quarterback John Uribe would throw on almost every down. Santa Barbara, in turn, knew Lancers running back John Lister would carry the ball just as regularly.

That's exactly how things worked out, but when the dust cleared, it was Lister and the Lancers (10-1) who had outgunned Uribe and the Dons (4-7) to advance to next week's quarterfinals of the CIF-Southern Section Northern Division playoffs.

"It's one thing to say it," said Lister. "You've got to go out and do it. We went out and did it tonight."

Lister broke his own school record by rushing for 322 yards, scoring five touchdowns along the way, to offset the prolific work of Uribe, who was 47 of 68 for 468 yards and four touchdowns.

"It was kind of my goal to succeed myself (as the record-holder)," said Lister, who set the record earlier this year against Buena. "It's pretty special."

Lister carried 39 times, with scoring runs of 20, 1, 27, 1 and 21 yards. He gained yardage on 37 of those carries, with one for a 1-yard loss and one for no gain. He came in needing 210 yards to pass the 2,000-yard mark for the season — and passed that figure on his first carry of the second half.

"All in day's work," he said. "When I've got these guys blocking for me, it's not too bad. I'm not too beat up. They opened some holes, and you just keep running."

That's true even when Santa Barbara, like everyone else facing the Lancers, is loading up against the run.

"The coaching adage is when there's eight guys (on defense up to stop the run), you can figure out a way to scheme it," said Thousand Oaks coach Mike Leiben. "When there's nine guys trying to stop it, get out of the run. But for three straight weeks, we've just stayed with the run. So he's done a heck of a job, and the offensive line, tight end and backs obviously have. And the coaching staff. We've been grinding at it, figuring out how to handle more guys than we can block."

Thousand Oaks needed all of that — as well as a 96-yard kickoff-return TD by Curtis Dempster and a 12-yard Ian Shultis touchdown pass to Robert Mullaney — to turn back Uribe, who threw 50 or more passes for the fourth straight week. He had touchdown passes of 14 and 71 yards to Roberto Nelson, 8 yards to Chase Chandler, and 4 yards to Bryson Lloyd. Lloyd had, what for many receivers would be a season's worth of statistics, 24 catches for 220 yards.

"They made a lot of plays," said Leiben. "They have a lot of great athletes, they do a great job with their system, and they had us on our heels all night."

Ultimately, while Thousand Oaks had a hard time stopping Santa Barbara, it did get two turnovers and forced two punts. Thousand Oaks, on the other hand, scored on seven of 10 possessions; two of the others ended with missed field goals, while the 10th ended when time expired.

"We knew we had to get some plays here and there," said Leiben, "because they've been doing this to people all season. It's not like we're the first. You get them derailed when you get turnovers."

Thousand Oaks came out of an outlandish first half leading 28-21, with Lister (204 yards, three touchdowns) offsetting of work of Uribe (22 of 27, 288 yards, three TDs). The difference — the score putting the Lancers in front — was the Shultis-to-Mullaney pass with 1:52 left in the half.

Dempster then returned the second-half kickoff for a score, and the Lancers maintained at least a little breathing room the rest of the way.

The final stats were essentially a defensive coordinator's nightmare: 1,077 total yards (541 for Thousand Oaks), 59 first downs (30 for Thousand Oaks) and, of course, 11 touchdowns and 77 points.

That may not be traditional playoff football, but it certainly was entertaining.