BROOKVILLE — Karns City and Brookville are both 1-3 — and thinking the same way.

“There is no more margin for error,” Gremlins coach Joe Sherwin said. “That's what we've told the boys.

“Our goal is to get to the playoffs and to do that, we have to start winning some of these games.”

Brookville hosts Karns City in a District 9 football game at 7 p.m. Friday.

“We still believe we're going to have a winning season and the playoffs would come with that,” Brookville coach Scott Park said. “But we have to get going.”

The Raiders have already tried four quarterbacks. Jack Krug threw for 623 yards and nine touchdowns in less than two games, but injured his shoulder in Week 2 and hasn't played since.

Tate Lindermuth, a freshman, has thrown for 240 yards in replacing Krug. Park wanted to go with a senior, Trent Gilhousen, at QB, but he was injured in practice.

Robert Keth, a sophomore, started against Clarion last week and threw for 158 yards and two touchdowns in a 28-15 loss.

“We don't know who's going to be lining up at quarterback for them,” Sherwin said. “But we do know they have plenty of talented skill people and a big offensive line, no matter who the quarterback is.”

Park said Keth will likely start behind center as Krug isn't ready yet.

“We're pretty much week to week with Krug now,” Park said. “It doesn't look like he'll be playing this week.”

The Raiders did get back senior receiver Bryan Dworek from injury last week. He saw his first action of the season and produced eight receptions for 65 yards.

Tucker Wolfe leads the Brookville rushing game with 377 yards and a 7.7 yard per carry average. Cade Park has 30 catches for 554 yards and eight touchdowns.

Among Brookville's injuries is a career-ending broken vertebrae suffered by sophomore special teams player Eli Ross.

“They fused the 3, 4 and 5 vertebrae together and Eli is walking again,” Park said. “He's in good spirits and has been coming to team functions. He just can't play football again.

“That's OK. That could have been so much worse.”

Karns City's issues have been turnover-related. The Gremlins fumbled four times in the first half of last week's 20-14 loss at Moniteau. They only lost one of those, but had a punt blocked and had a bad snap on another punt in that first half.

“We've been working on ball security,” Sherwin said. 'We've been practicing our center snaps, our shotgun snaps ... We've been errant in those areas. All we can do is practice and improve there.”

Hunter Jones has emerged as KC's top back, rushing for 339 yards and six TDs. He is averaging a whopping nine yards per carry.

“I'd agree that he's emerged as our top back,” Sherwin said. “It's not that we don't want our other kids carrying the ball, but Hunter is giving us our best chance to score right now.”

Anthony Kamenski has completed 28 of 54 passes for 315 yards, but only one touchdown thus far. The TD catch belongs to leading receiver Eric Pfeiffer, who has five catches for 65 yards on the year.

Defensively, Sherwin pointed to linebackers Nathan Waltman, Cole Coon and Trey Albert, along with tackle Bradon Bastian, as the team's leaders.

“Karns City always has tough, hard-nosed kids,” Park said. “This will be a physical game. It always is.

“We've lost some games we felt we should have won and I'm sure they feel the same way. We're in the same boat.”

Brookville defeated KC, 40-28, last year. The Gremlins lead the all-time series, 23-9-2.