High school football: Avon, Avon Lake, Keystone and Elyria Catholic earn playoff spots

And then there were four. Avon, Avon Lake, Keystone and Elyria Catholic are the only area football teams still standing after the regular season. They'll begin their postseason journeys this weekend with the regional quarterfinals. Divisions I, II, III are set for Friday and Divisions IV, V and VII are Saturday. All games are at 7 p.m. Avon and Avon Lake finished as the top two seeds in Division II, Region 6 and will have home games. Keystone is the top seed in Division IV, Region 14 and will also host its opener while Elyria Catholic is seeded seventh in Division V, Region 18 and will be on the road. Avon finished 10-0 with an outright Southwestern Conference title and the No. 1 seed in the region. The Eagles' quest for a third straight regional championship starts against Wooster (7-3). Avon is making its 10th straight playoff appearance, highlighted by a state-runner up finish in 2011. The Eagles have been to the regional final five times, winning three, and hold a 7-2 record in the first round since 2010. Avon had to battle through a slew of injuries to key starters, including All-Ohio running back Nick Perusek, but that didn't stop the Eagles from winning at least nine regular-season games for the 10th straight year and going undefeated for the fifth time during that span. "Anytime you go 10-0 it's a big deal," Avon coach Mike Elder said. "We've had 10 straight years in the playoffs, but we haven't been undefeated all of those years. It's hard to win every week in the SWC. We're proud of our guys, and overcoming all of the adversity and things thrown at us makes it that much sweeter." The Shoremen will face seventh-seeded Maple Heights (7-3) after narrowly missing out on the No. 1 seed and the SWC championship. Avon Lake's only loss is to Avon — 13-12 in Week 1. Since then its offense has scored at least 24 points every game and 31 or more in the last eight, while its defense set a school record for least points allowed with 50. The Shoremen have six shutouts in the last eight games, allowing 14 points in all and no more than seven in one game. "They've definitely earned it with what they've been able to accomplish, especially on the defensive side of the ball," Avon Lake coach Matt Kostelnik said. "With this group, it's going to be exciting, but we have a formidable opponent coming up in Maple Heights. I'm excited to be back in the playoffs, but we have to get to work and the kids have to refocus and understand this is a whole new season." Keystone is 9-1 record and, like Avon Lake, hasn't lost since Week 1 — a 26-20 setback to playoff-bound Bay. Thanks to some last-minute secondary points Saturday, Bellevue leaped over Clyde and Clear Fork to finish seventh, bumping Clyde to the No. 8 seed and Clear Fork — the regional runner-up last year — out of the bracket by 0.2 points. The Flyers (6-4) are making their seventh straight postseason appearance, the previous six in Division III. They've gone 7-6 over that period, advancing past the first round on four occasions while making two trips to the regional finals and making the state semifinals in 2013. Keystone is making its second trip to the playoffs, the first coming in 2014, and will host a playoff game for the first time. "Moments and years like this truly are special," Keystone coach Don Griswold said. "The town is excited, people have been talking about it for a couple of weeks now. It was nice knowing that we were most likely going to host going into Week 10, so preparations for tailgates and all those sorts of things are happening around town. There's a buzz in LaGrange around football and it's pretty neat to see and be part of." Elyria Catholic is making its second playoff appearance in as many years under coach Brian Fox, who has a 16-6 record since taking over. EC will be at second-seeded Orrville (9-1), the defending Division V state champion. The Panthers, however, are no strangers to tough competition. Two of their three losses came by a combined 14 points to Buckeye and Bay, who both made the playoffs in Division III. EC also lost by four points to Padua, which finished 11th in Region 6 at 5-5. Nine of the Panthers' 10 opponents play in higher divisions with Fairview the only one in Division V. Six of their foes finished with at least five wins. "Playing teams like that is going to get you ready to make a run," Fox said. "You'd much rather have a tough route to get to the playoffs than to get to the playoffs and be extremely unprepared." Contact Chris Sweeney at 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com. Follow him @CSweeneyCT on Twitter.