KARNS CITY— If the game is King of the Hill, credit Karns City for its staying power.

The Gremlins have been up there for a while.

The Karns City football team enters Friday's 7 p.m. home game against fellow unbeaten Redbank Valley riding a 25-game regular season conference winning streak — and hungry for some competition.

With an expanded Keystone Shortway Athletic Conference schedule this year, the Gremlins will not play an out-of-conference opponent until the final week of the regular season, when they travel to Wilmington.

"I was opposed to the expanded schedule from the start,"KC coach Ed Conto said. "You need to be able to experience playing teams from outside of your own league.

"We play Moniteau pretty much twice a year now. There's a good chance we'll play Brookville twice a year. Programs can get stale playing the same teams all the time."

Karns City defeated its KSACopponents by an average margin of 17 points in 2005 and 2006, needing overtime to defeat Clarion, nipping Keystone by one point, Moniteau by two and Keystone by four during that stretch.

In the past two years, the Gremlins have defeated KSACfoes by an average of 37 points, its closest decision being a 39-19 triumph over Moniteau last year.

"They are the class of the league, no doubt,"Moniteau coach Jeff Campbell said. "Whether you're us, Redbank, Clarion, it doesn't matter. ... To do well in this league, you need to find a way to beat Karns City."

While no one in the KSAChas come up with such a formula of late, Forest Hills handed the Gremlins a 44-21 loss to end the 2006 season. Sharpsville defeated Karns City by three touchdowns in 2005, when the current 25-game conference streak began.

St. Marys suffered a 23-13 loss to the Gremlins to begin the 2007 season. That was KC's closest game in a 10-0 regular season.

"We had a few injuries in 2005 and struggled against a lot of teams,"Conto said. "And the way our system works, getting a lot of kids involved offensively and defensively, we usually don't hit our stride until we've played three or four games.

"If you look at the rosters of our league's teams this year, a lot of them have like 20 juniors, four seniors. ... Teams in that situation are going to struggle."

Clarion-Limestone and Keystone, two teams that competed well against KCin 2005-06, are down this year. Karns City defeated those schools by scores of 63-7 and 54-12 the past two weeks.

KCdefeated Keystone 14-13 and 29-25 in 2005 and 2006. The Gremlins' last KSACregular season loss was a 24-16 overtime decision to Clarion-Limestone in Week 3 of the 2005 campaign.

Along with Redbank Valley, the Gremlins' closest KSACcompetitor this year is Moniteau, which has patterned its program after that of the Warriors' neighboring rival.

"They win games by running the football and stopping the run,"Campbell said. "That's what we're trying to do. When you get into playoff weather, it's harder to throw the football."

KCsenior tight end-safety Chris Price credits the coaches and the school's tradition for his team's success.

"Nobody here wants to be the team that doesn't win,"Price said. "You grow up watching the older guys win and you want to be like them."

Some of the coaches on the Gremlins staff, T.J. McFarland, Brett Green, Ian Ferguson and Brad Miller, are former Karns City players themselves.

Senior wide receiver-safety Josh Callender said teamwork and work ethic make the difference on the field.

"Everybody works hard in practice and we develop depth that way,"he said. "It helps having more than one guy capable of playing well at each position."

Conto has developed his coaching philosophy through the work of others.

"I followed Clyde Conti's success at Clarion-Limestone for years, learned how to use crash ends through working with (Knoch head coach)Mike King when he was with me at A-CValley, picked up a lot on defense from (former A-CValley coach) Scott Austin, who was part of a state championship team in South Carolina," he said.

"Ultimately, you have to develop your own way. Our way works here. We don't care about statistics and we don't complain about injuries. We plug someone else in and keep on going."