NFL PLAYOFFS : Lightning Strikes for Chargers : AFC: Stoyanovich misses 48-yard field goal, San Diego earns a 22-21 victory over the Miami Dolphins to leave it one game shy of its first Super Bowl.

Somewhere in the pile of tangled bodies, crushed Dolphins and elated Chargers, San Diego defensive lineman Reuben Davis lay on his back on the wet grass of San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium and stared at the blue sky.

Somewhere above him, the ball off the foot of Miami kicker Pete Stoyanovich was sailing to the right of the goal post, a 48-yard field-goal attempt with one second left badly missing its mark.

Davis didn’t have to watch. He could tell the kick was unsuccessful from the roar of the record crowd of 63,381.

The Chargers had held off Miami, 22-21, Sunday, rallying from a 21-6 halftime deficit.

“We’re going to Pittsburgh,” Davis told himself.

Indeed, San Diego, the city that has played host to a Super Bowl but has never been in one is going to get another chance in the AFC championship game against the Steelers in Pittsburgh. It will be San Diego’s third appearance in the AFC title game and its first since 1982.

All around Davis, Charger players and fans were yelling and screaming, shaking their fists and proudly displaying anything they could find with a lightning bolt on it to a world they believed never took them seriously.

“I can’t describe any of it,” said San Diego quarterback Stan Humphries. “I guess it really won’t hit me until the whole thing is over with.”

Davis just lay there, at peace in a sea of chaos.

No more Dolphins.

No more Dan Marino.

No more controversial calls.

And there were certainly a couple of those.

If the Chargers were the biggest winners Sunday, instant replay might have come in a close second.

San Diego was given one touchdown and denied another on calls that were not confirmed by television replays.

It didn’t appear that any of that was going to matter after the first 30 minutes. The first half featured a virtuoso performance by Marino, the maestro of quarterbacks who appeared headed for another brilliant performance.

In that first half, Marino brushed off a San Diego defense determined to apply pressure with a relentless blitz, calmly surveyed the field and repeatedly found a welcome pair of arms to catch his passes.

More often than not, those arms were Keith Jackson’s.

Marino completed 17 of 24 passes for 206 yards and three touchdown passes before halftime.

Two scoring passes went to Jackson, for eight and nine yards. The other went to receiver Mike Williams for 16 yards.

While Marino was getting seven points at a gulp, the Chargers were settling for field goals.

They got down to the Dolphin two- and three-yard lines on successive drives, only to run out of downs. John Carney responded with field goals of 20 and 21 yards.

San Diego also turned the ball over twice, on a fumble by Natrone Means and Humphries’ interception.

All in all, it was a pretty depressing half for the Chargers. It got a lot better in the second half, in which the Chargers held Marino to seven of 14 passing for 56 yards and limited Miami’s runners to two yards.

San Diego drove 71 yards to open the third quarter, only to be stopped at the Dolphin one-yard line when Means was shouldered out of bounds by Marco Coleman.

Miami took over, but only for an instant.

With Davis, a run-stuffing specialist, on duty, Marino handed the ball to Bernie Parmalee a couple of yards deep in his own end zone. Parmalee made up only one of those yards before Davis wrapped him up, giving San Diego a safety.

The play seemed to inspire the Chargers.

They drove back to the Miami 24-yard line. From there, Means, who gained a game-high 139 yards rushing, took off around the right side. He ran between two defenders at the 10-yard line, picked up J.B. Brown on his back at the five and then encountered Michael Stewart at the three.

Stewart tried to knock Means out of bounds. As he tumbled, the Charger running back transferred the ball from his right hand to his left and stretched it across the goal line.

But a replay clearly showed Means’ right foot out of bounds inside the three.

“I knew I wasn’t out of bounds,” Means insisted. “He (side judge Tom Fincken) had the best seat of anybody in the house.”

Fincken’s seat was on the ground, run over on the play.

There was more controversy ahead.

In the fourth quarter, Marino connected with Jackson on a 20-yard pass. As Jackson went down, he tossed the ball as if he were trying to lateral it to some teammate only he could see. San Diego defensive back Darren Carrington fell on the ball.

After consultation, officials ruled that it was an illegal forward pass, drawing a five-yard penalty and loss of down, but not loss of possession.

Referee Johnny Grier said he had never seen a call like that made on anyone other than a quarterback.

The Chargers were angry. But not as angry as they were later in the quarter when an apparent 37-yard touchdown pass from Humphries to Shawn Jefferson was ruled incomplete. Again, the camera showed something different: Jefferson with both feet in bounds.

“I looked for the official’s hands to go up,” Jefferson said. “When I saw his hands going east and west, I said, ‘Hey buddy, what’s up?’ ”

Humphries threw an interception on the next play. But he got one more chance with 3:16 to play.

Starting at his own 39, Humphries drove to the Miami eight with 48 seconds to play.

From there, the Chargers ran a play on which receiver Mark Seay runs a route to the right, through defenders heading in the other direction.

If all goes well, Seay “comes out with the ball,” Humphries said.

All went well.

“It felt great. It felt like all the pressure was off,” said Seay of his romp into the end zone.

Not quite.

There was still Marino. Actually, there was still the San Diego pass defense. A 32-yard interference call against Eric Castle, trying to defend Scott Miller, put the ball in position for Stoyanovich’s try.

The snap was high.

“I stretched my arms out to get (the snap) and I got the ball down as fast as I could,” said holder John Kidd, a former Charger. “We saw it going to the right and looked at each other and there wasn’t anything to say. The season was over.”

Kidd could look. Jefferson couldn’t. “I had my head down,” he said, “but when I looked up, I saw the officials’ hands going east and west again.”

But this time the Chargers didn’t protest.

This time, they were headed east.