AMHERST — Avon Lake may not be known as the bully of the Southwestern Conference, but it sure acts the part.

The Shoremen were simply too strong, too physical and threw a wrinkle or two at Amherst along the way Thursday night in laying claim to their 11th straight league championship by knocking out the Comets, 34-6, in front of a huge crowd at Memorial Field and FS Ohio viewers throughout the state.

“I don’t know about that,” said coach Dave Dlugosz when asked if Thursday’s win was just an old fashioned butt-kicking. “Amherst played us tough the whole time. We had some real nice breaks. (Amherst) was kind of stacking the line of scrimmage to try to take our running game away the first half and our play-action passes really worked.”

Twice Avon Lake burned the Comets with long pass plays — both pretty much the same route — with speedy and tall wideout Ronnie Willoughby getting behind the Amherst secondary for huge touchdowns in the first half that helped give the Shoremen a 20-0 lead. The second — an 89-yarder with under a minute to play in the first half — sealed the verdict.

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Avon Lake improved to 7-3 overall and 6-1 in the SWC, and now waits to see if that’s good enough to earn a postseason bid. The Shoremen may have to share the SWC title with Olmsted Falls, which must beat North Olmsted tonight to clinch its share.

Avon Lake had a 14-0 lead, but Amherst (7-3, 5-2) drove the ball and had a first down at the Avon Lake 33-yard line with 2:04 left in the half. Kevin Morrissette picked off Alex Basinski’s pass to halt the drive and give the Shoremen the ball inside the 10. On a third-and-5, the Shoremen worked the play-action pass to perfection.

“That pass at the end of the half was pretty discouraging,” said Amherst coach Kevin Fell. “I felt sure we were going to score and, even after we got intercepted, I thought we’d get the ball back. They hit that pass and for all intents and purposes, mentally that took it out of us.”

“It’s pretty darn tough trying to cover an oversized wide receiver like Ron Willoughby one-on-one,” Dlugosz said of the 6-foot-4 junior who runs the 40-yard dash in 4.6 seconds. “To the credit of our kids, they executed the play. (Trent Toy) threw the ball well and Ron’s a pretty good athlete.”

“It was a hitch and go,” said Willoughby of the 89-yard score that happened with less than a minute left in the first half. “I knew if I did a hitch and go, the defender would pull up and I’d be open deep. Trent just laid it out there. It was a perfect pass.”

With a 20-0 lead, Avon Lake went back to its smash-mouth ways behind talented tailback Mike Mansnerus, who finished with 228 yards and three touchdowns. Mansnerus, who finished the season with over 1,500 rushing yards, iced it with a 56-yard sprint through the Amherst defense with less than seven minutes to play. Avon Lake ran up 430 yards of offense on the Comets.

“Everyone said Avon Lake was done this year,” Mansnerus said of the Shoremen’s 1-3 start. “We took that personal. We decided to work hard every practice, every day and just gel together as a team. Look at where we are now — we’re SWC champions and going to the playoffs.”

Basinski led Amherst’s offense with 112 yards passing and 40 yards rushing. Jason Stump had 64 yards on the ground, but Avon Lake controlled the Comets as well as anyone has all year. Amherst was held to just 248 yards total.

“We struggled all day with (Mansnerus),” Fell said. “But as good as (the Shoremen) looked offensively, they did far and away the best job defensively against us as anybody that’s played us.”

The Shoremen pressured Basinski, who had thrown for nearly 1,500 yards and six touchdowns coming in. Morrissette, Dan Schneider and Brian Mihalik were in his face all night as Avon Lake ran a variety of blitzes and schemes at Amherst.
“(Basinski) was a cercern,” said Dlugosz. “He runs the football real well and he can throw the football. You have to give a lot of credit to our defensive staff. They came up with a great game plan and give the kids credit for executing the game plan.”

DON’T PACK UP: Dlugosz concluded the post-game talk to his team with a simple but certainly sweet sentence to the ears of his players. “We’re not packing up the equipment yet, boys,” he said, an obvious reference to playing a first-round playoff game next weekend.

Contact Tim Gebhardt at 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com.

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