Karns City quarterback Matt Endlish leads the Union defense on a chase Friday as the Gremlins took a 42-0 victory.

KARNS CITY — Last season, Karns City shared the Keystone Shortway Athletic Conference title with Clarion and Clarion-Limestone.

Not this year.

With its first shutout of the season, a 42-0 win over Union, the Gremlins own the KSAC title outright.

"As a young team, I thought we would be pretty good," Karns City coach Ed Conto said. "I thought we could play at our best at the end of the year. I never thought we would be conference champs."

Despite the perfect record, Conto isn't sure how the Gremlins (9-0) will perform in the postseason.

"I don't know if we are a good playoff team," he said. "We play a lot of people. We are still young and doing a great job."

With Conto using numerous players against Union, it took a while for the Gremlins' offense to get rolling. The Gremlins had 12 different ball carriers, and two different quarterbacks threw passes.

Karns City scored only one touchdown in the first quarter, but it started to click on offense late in the first half.

In a span of 3 minutes, 50 seconds, Karns City broke open a 7-0 game with three touchdowns.

"We were playing a lot of guys," Conto said. "We were rotating quarterbacks, and it took a while to get a rhythm. We were trying a lot of different things and it was just being in sync."

Leading 7-0, Josh Stimac scored on an 11-yard run with 3:56 left in the first half. After Union's offense went three-and-out, Karns City and Markus LaVan needed only four plays to go 39 yards in two minutes to open a 21-point lead.

The Knights' next possession again ended in disaster. After another three-and-out, Karns City's Stephon Conto fielded a Josh Holden punt and ran 36 yards for the touchdown with six seconds left in half.

"We wore down like Ithought we would," Union coach Tom Kidder said. "We don't have that depth."

LaVan again scored from 13 yards out 3:16 into the second half. But Kidder said the touchdown should not have happened.

On the second-half kickoff, Union kicked the ball short, Karns City dropped the ball and the Knights recovered. But the officials said he inadvertently blew the whistle and made Union kick again

"We started to get some momentum and they took it away from us," Kidder said.

Karns City's defense was stellar all evening as it surrendered only 102 yards of total offense. But the Gremlins continue to have trouble with personal fouls. Karns City was flagged for four unsportsmanlike penalties.

Karns City will play a 10th game next week on the road at Forest Hills, a District 6 team outside of Johnstown.