ST. PAULS — It doesn’t matter what the score is at halftime of a St. Pauls football game — the team’s mentality is to play as if the score is 0-0 as they come out for the second half.

It’s working.

The Bulldogs have outscored the opposition 55-9 in the second half during their run to the 2AA state championship game, leaving no doubt in any of their three playoff games who was the better team as they walked off the field in victory.

“The coaches always tell us, and the players always tell each other, we always say it’s 0-0, it’s a 0-0 ballgame,” senior wide receiver and linebacker Will Ford said. “Go back out there and play how you first started, or the first rep of the game. That’s the mentality we’ve had to keep throughout the second half, and so that’s what keeps us going in the second half.”

The most clear example of the Bulldogs’ second-half success is also the most recent one, Friday’s East Regional final win at Washington. St. Pauls trailed 20-14 at halftime, struggling at times to stop the Pam Pack’s option offense over the first 24 minutes and missing out on a couple of scoring opportunities offensively.

The Bulldogs outscored the Pam Pack 20-3 in the second half, with an eye-popping 226-86 edge in rushing yards. The big plays favored St. Pauls: a 68-yard KeMarion Baldwin run gave the Bulldogs the lead permanently early in the fourth, and Will Ford’s blocked punt, recovered and returned by Erick Washington for a touchdown, gave the Bulldogs a two-possession lead, the first for either side the entire game.

“The coaches come up to us and talk to us and tell us what we did wrong, and they bring us all together and talk to us (and say) ‘it’s 0-0,’” senior wide receiver and defensive back Waltay Jackson said. “Last Friday, he brought all of us together at halftime and said ‘are y’all ready go home?’ We said no — and that changed the momentum.”

Against SouthWest Edgecombe in the second round, the game actually was 0-0 at halftime; two rushing touchdowns by quarterback Mikail Breeden put the Bulldogs up 14-0 by early in the fourth and the defense finished the shutout.

A 14-3 halftime lead in the first round against Randleman was converted into a 35-9 victory. The lone touchdown allowed by the Bulldogs defense in a postseason second half came in this game, though even that score came on a questionable officiating call.

“(We’re) just playing as a family, and bending and don’t break, and everybody having trust in each other that we’re going to carry each other’s weight and assignments, and stay mentally sound, and just maturity and working as a unit,” senior defensive lineman Ethan Roberts said. “Staying confident — not cocky, because cocky gets you beat, but staying confident.”

Even in the regular-season finale — a playoff-like atmosphere as the Bulldogs played at rival Red Springs, who entered undefeated, for the Three Rivers Conference title — St. Pauls outscored the Red Devils 22-12 to turn a 20-13 halftime lead into a 42-25 win; this included 22 unanswered points over the last 19 minutes.

While the defense has shut down the opposition, the offense has averaged 183.3 yards in the second half of the Bulldogs’ playoff wins, including 168 rushing yards.

“(We) just keep playing Bulldog football,” senior running back Demonta Williams said. “Don’t rush and take our time, and try to score.”

Bulldogs coach Mike Setzer says the team’s second-half strength comes from two things — conditioning, and coaching/adjustments.

The physical Bulldogs team has been fresher late in games due to their strong conditioning work, making it easier for them to be the team making the key plays.

“We get some kids that come in and hate conditioning, and they come in and realize we condition a lot,” Setzer said. “I think conditioning is one of the biggest things with our kids.”

The adjustments made by the coaching staff each week at halftime have allowed them to play more effectively on both sides of the ball.

“Our coaching has allowed our kids not to go bombs over Baghdad in their mind,” Setzer said. “We’ve really done a better job the last couple years of coaching the kids, and adjustment. Adjustments come out of coaching, and I think that our coaching staff has done a really good job of keeping our kids calm under fire.”

Indeed, the second-half successes the team has enjoyed during the playoff run, including in one game that was tied at halftime and one in which they trailed, give the team more confidence in their ability to pull out a close game and/or come from behind if those situations present themselves in the 2AA State Championship Game (vs. Salisbury, Thursday, 7 p.m. at Carter-Finley Stadium in Raleigh).

“First half is just coming out there, trying to stay mentally sound, and learn our opponent,” Roberts said. “If there’s a (halftime deficit), hopefully second half, just sitting there, giving us enough time to learn our opponent and their tendencies to come back in the second half.”

Regardless of where the score stands at halftime, the Bulldogs will maintain a 0-0 mentality, and play — literally — like Bulldogs.

“When you go into a game, obviously you never want to be behind, and you don’t want to be close, but what we’re teaching these kids is the next level, every level we go, it’s going to be a dogfight,” Setzer said. “So I think it’s not much of a surprise; I just think our kids, it’s almost ‘once again, we told you so, it’s going to be a dogfight,’ and just what you’d expect.”