High school football: Avon Lake continues its dominance over Amherst

AMHERST — Make it 23 in a row. Avon Lake's two decades of dominance over Amherst continued Friday night as the Shoremen took advantage of a few Comets mistakes by scoring on every possession of the first half in a 55-14 win in Southwestern Conference play. Amherst has lost 18 straight games. The Comets (0-7, 0-4 SWC) opened the night with the ball and featured the running of sophomore quarterback Cole Norris, who had six carries for 37 yards. But a holding penalty forced the Comets to try a 42-yard field goal and Nathan Stuart's kick went wide left. Amherst killed more than half the first quarter, but it didn't matter to the Shoremen as Wade Nelson went 57 yards for a score on his first carry of the night for a 7-0 lead with 4:47 left in the period. "On that first drive we just marched and marched exactly like our game plan," Comets coach Kenny Fritz said. "We have to find a way to overcome those mistakes that kill our drives. We have to be able to play complementary football and keep the other team at bay." Nelson went on to rack up 129 yards on just six carries, all in the first half. Avon Lake (6-1, 3-1) scored again in the first quarter after a short Comets punt resulted in a 10-yard strike from quarterback Jeremy Dzik to Matthew Stuewe with 1:08 on the clock for a 13-0 lead. "He just doesn't miss a throw and makes it easy to catch passes," Stuewe said of Dzik. "We really want to keep this winning streak going. We didn't want to be the team that gave it up." Mistakes continued to plague Amherst in the second quarter as Avon Lake turned a Norris fumble on a fourth-and-1 play into a 30-yard touchdown pass from Dzik to Isaac Richardson to go up 20-0 with 6:50 left in the half. With half the second quarter gone, the Shoremen still managed to put the ball in the end zone three more times to push the lead to 41-0. Dzik picked up his third touchdown pass of the half, hitting Derek McCrum with a 47-yard strike right at the back of the end zone at 3:21. Dzik finished the first half 8-of-11 for 165 yards and three TD passes. "I've been trying to take advantage of their defense since middle school, the defense doesn't change much," Dzik said. "I really enjoyed spreading the ball around and getting everyone involved tonight." Following an interception by Keegan Rudduck, Dzik punched it in from 1 yard out and the final score of the half came when Avery Viancourt blocked a punt, scooped up the ball and walked into the end zone from 3 yards out. That gave Avon Lake a commanding 41-0 lead and sent the game to a running clock to start the second half. As if Avon Lake didn't have things going its way enough, Anthony Benedict took the opening kickoff of the second half and weaved his way 98 yards for a TD and a 48-0 lead as backup kicker Reece Polomsky knocked through the PAT. Amherst finally got on the board when Bishop Fryson scored from 1 yard out and JR Bires from 36 yards. "When we come here we have to be prepared to play hard and play tough," said Shoremen coach Matt Kostelnik, who was a freshman at Avon Lake the last time the Comets beat the Shoremen. "They had us on our heels a little bit, but we were able to hit some big plays and score quickly." Contact James Brady at (440) 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com.