The transitive property of equality is that if two things are each equal to a third thing, they must be equal to each other.

If one were to use that fundamental mathematical principle — often referenced as if A=B and B=C then A=C — entering Thursday’s Class 4A state football quarterfinal, things did not look promising for Hill-Murray but did for Kasson-Mantorville.

That’s because the KoMets overcame an 11-point halftime deficit to take down top-ranked Byron 31-28 in last week’s section title game. Byron crushed Hill-Murray by 36 points in mid-September.

At Stillwater High School, the principle held up.

Jeremiah Peterson ran for two scores and had a touchdown catch, Keymoni Bent returned an interception 100 yards for a touchdown and Kasson-Mantorville beat the Pioneers 35-21.

With the win, the KoMets (10-1) will play Grand Rapids in a state semifinal at 11:30 a.m. Nov. 14 at U.S. Bank Stadium.

“We know we’re a special team and we could make it to ‘The Bank.’ But we knew we couldn’t take Hill-Murray easy either,” Peterson said.

Grady Buettner ran for 204 yards and a touchdown for Hill-Murray (9-2), which also got a touchdown reception from Caden Harrington.

The game’s biggest play came in the final 30 seconds of the opening half.

Trailing 14-6, Hill-Murray looked for the equalizer from the Kasson-Mantorville 9-yard line. Brayden Hartmann’s throw was headed for a receiver in the end zone, but Bent got in the way.

With the ball in his arms and plenty of green in front of him, the sophomore sped down the KoMets’ sideline, made a move inside the Pioneer 40 to deke a final tackler and dashed across the other goal line.

Hill-Murray’s five first half drives all got inside the Kasson-Mantorville 25, but the Pioneers scored just six points via 40- and 30-yard field goals from Evan Curtis.

“You can’t win a big game like this shooting yourselves in the foot like we did,” coach Rob Reeves said. “Both sides of the ball, special teams, we probably gave up a big play. If you’re going to play in these types of games against really good football teams you got to take care of the football, you got to make better decisions. We didn’t get it done tonight.”