KARNS CITY — You can call them the "Purple Curtain" because no one runs on the Gremlins.

The game plan for Karns City against Keystone on a soggy Friday night was simple: stop the run and make the Panthers win with the pass.

For the second straight week, Karns City bottled up an opponent's ground game, holding Keystone to 7 yards in a 60-35 win.

"You take away the run, that's what happens," said Karns City coach Ed Conto. "That's usually the recipe for success. This is high school football, and not too many teams are going to beat you passing."

Keystone certainly tried.

Panthers quarterback Dan Reed threw for 322 yards and four touchdowns, but he also gave the ball away five times on two interceptions and three fumbles.

Reed, the team's leading rusher, was held to minus-11 yards on 14 carries.

Conto spends a lot of time in practice on defensive technique, particularly in stopping the run, and it has paid off.

Last week, Karns City held Clarion-Limestone to minus-20 yards rushing. In five games this season, the Gremlins' stingy run defense has yielded 194 yards — or 39 per game.

"The kids understand the defense and they execute the technique," Conto said. "We spend a lot of time on defense, and these spread teams spend an awful lot of time on offense. We feel defense is what is going to win it for you."

Not that the Karns City offense was stagnant.

The Gremlins rolled up nearly 500 yards and used the big play to put Keystone away.

Aaron Markle threw a 30-yard touchdown strike to Joe Fallecker on a halfback pass to put Karns City up 6-0.

The Gremlins scored eight offensive touchdowns in the game, with five covering 30 yards or more.

Craig Slomers busted off a 54-yard TD run, J.R. Yough scored on a 59-yard romp, quarterback Dylan Hipple ran 44 yards for a score and hooked up with Fallecker for a 73-yard touchdown.

That scoring pass to Fallecker put Karns City up 39-14 midway through the third quarter.

But Reed got hot in the second half, taking advantage of a Karns City secondary that was rotating players in and out.

Reed completed 9-of-11 passes for 253 yards in the final two quarters. But turnovers killed him and his team.

Yough picked up a Reed fumble late in the second quarter and raced 25 yards for a touchdown to give the Gremlins a 25-7 lead at the half.

Brandon Collier intercepted Reed twice, once in the first half and again on the third play of the second half, returning it to the Keystone 2. Jake Wagner plowed into the end zone on the first offensive play for the Gremlins.

"They scored about every way they could," said Keystone coach Jason Nellis. "We picked a bad night to have a bad night."

Keystone came into the game at 3-1 and with high hopes.

The Panthers (3-2) left two games behind the Gremlins in the Keystone Shortway Athletic Conference race.

Karns City (5-0), despite losing 23 seniors to graduation, is off to a pretty good start in 2009.

Markle rushed for 73 yards on 14 carries, Yough had two carries for 60 yards and two touchdowns and Hipple completed 7-of-9 passes for 148 yards.

Fallecker caught four passes for 134 yards and two touchdowns.

"We're still developing," Conto said. "We don't know where we are at. We hope we are a pretty good football team. We're not loaded with super stars, we're just playing as a team."