AVON LAKE — It was vintage Avon Lake football Thursday night.
The Shoremen pounded the ball, played rock-solid defense and pulled a trick play out of the bag at the most opportune time in beating Southwestern Conference rival Olmsted Falls, 34-7, on FSN Ohio’s game of the week. The Shoremen improved to 3-2 overall and 1-1 in the league.
“It really looked familiar didn’t it?” said Shoremen coach Dave Dlugosz. “We’ve been having issues on defense. It hasn’t been so much with our front guys, it’s been in our secondary and we were challenged by a very potent passing attack and a great offense that has a pretty good understanding of what to do with the spread. Our guys really stepped it up.”
It was the kind of effort Dlugosz had been looking for all season.
Avon Lake rolled up 368 yards on the ground with two backs hitting the 100-yard mark. Mike Mansnerus, out with an injury the last two games, had a big night — running for 170 yards and two touchdowns and adding a halfback pass for a backbreaking 71-yard scoring strike to Kevin Morrissette.
 Steady Steve Mares added 103 rushing yards while Avon Lake’s defense held Falls’ explosive offense to just four first downs and 20 yards rushing.
Mares had a 63-yard touchdown burst 10 seconds into the fourth quarter and Mansnerus followed with a 66-yarder less than two minutes later.
Avon Lake now leads the series, 34-13. Olmsted Falls, which hasn’t had a non-winning season since 1994 (.500), is a very uncharacteristic 1-4 overall and 0-2 in the SWC.
The first half was a typical Shoremen-Bulldogs donnybrook. Falls knotted the game at 7-all with a 65-yard toss from John Atkinson to Rob Van Zandt with 2:02 left in the first half and nearly scored again before intermission with an incomplete pass in the end zone from inside Avon Lake’s 30-yard line.
Early in the second half, Mansnerus rolled to his left after a pitch out and fired a strike to Morrissette, who set sail on a great run through the Bulldogs secondary to put Avon Lake on top 13-7.
“That was more the receiver than me,” said Mansnerus. “When coach told me (we are running the play) I got all excited. (Dlugosz) told me at practice this week we were going to run it. No one expects a left-handed kid to throw the ball.”
“We talked about it at halftime that we were going to throw it,” said Dlugosz. “We set it up. If you notice the way we were calling the plays, we set it up to throw it left. It would throw us off, too, because usually your tailback’s right-handed, you’re going to roll right and throw it right. We have a left-handed tailback this year and it throws things off.
“Give credit to (Morrissette). He did a great job. He sold the crack-back block that brought the corner up, then he broke back outside. Mike laid it out to him and what a tremendous job he did running the football after that catch. He showed some moves I didn’t know he had. It looked like his mom was chasing him.”
From that point, Avon Lake bulldozed its way on the ground. The Shoremen drove for three more scores while completely stopping the Bulldogs. Avon Lake had drives of 59, 75 and 66 yards and dominating play by running 43 plays to just 18 by Olmsted Falls in the second half.
“Our line opened up big holes,” said Mansnerus. “We were able to see them and go right through the holes.”
Brian Hollerman, Tom Skuggen, Adam Schneid, Christian Pace, Joe Coyne, tight end Dan Schneider and fullback Cody Bennington blew open the holes and Mansnerus and Mares did the rest.
“We got tossed around a little bit last week (by Brecksville),” said Dlugosz. “It was good to see us have a good week.”
Avon Lake had interceptions by Morrissette and Ryan Kirkpatrick and a fumble recovery and nice return by Joe Gaydosh. Nate Triska and Sean McCann led a relentless defensive line that kept the pressure on Falls all night.
“I don’t think (Atkinson) ever got very comfortable back there,” said Dlugosz of Olmsted Falls’ quarterback.
“Our defense did a nice job of controlling the damage in the first half,” said Falls coach Jim Ryan. “But the story of the game was (Avon Lake’s) offensive and defensive line did a tremendous job controlling the trenches.”
Olmsted Falls had only 140 yards total offense and just 20 on the ground. The Bulldogs had only one first down after intermission and were unable to sustain anything offensively.
“In order to do that, you have to control the line of scrimmage,” Ryan said. “We weren’t able to do that at all.”
RACE IS ON: Defending champion Avon Lake knew it had to win Thursday to stay in this year’s SWC title race.
“We’re back on track and we’re ready to go,” Mansnerus said.
“You get two down this early,” said Dlugosz. “It’s almost impossible to dig out of it.”
Contact Tim Gebhardt at 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com.

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