KARNS CITY — Hunter Jones and his teammates never lost faith.

Even after an uncharacteristic 1-4 start for the Karns City football team and even after letting leads and games slip away in the fourth quarter of those defeats, Jones said there was never any doubt.

“We knew we had it,” said Jones, a senior running back. “We knew we could play with all these teams. And we knew if we played together we could be unstoppable.”

Karns City was pretty much unstoppable Friday at home against St. Marys, rolling up 432 yards of offense in a 53-14 victory over St. Marys that snapped a three-game losing streak.

Jones rushed for 139 yards and a touchdown to help that cause.

“We just needed to finish and eliminate our mistakes,” Jones said. “And capitalize on theirs.”

Karns City didn't turn the ball over in a game for the first time this season and took advantage of several Dutch miscues in the first half to build a commanding 26-0 lead.

The Gremlins (2-4) started drives at the St. Marys 16, 35, 48 and 17 in the first two quarters and scored on three of them.

The other scoring drive began at the Karns City 46.

“That was key,” said Karns City coach Joe Sherwin. “When you start a drive and you know you're pretty much in four-down territory, that makes a big difference in your play calls. That helps out big time.”

The Gremlins scored touchdowns in the first half on runs of 10, 13 and 2 by Jones, Devin Ryan and Michell Kelsea, and added another score in the air when Erik Pfeifer made a diving catch in the end zone on a pass from Anthony Kamenski for a 20-yard TD.

Kamenski only completed three passes, but two went for touchdowns. He added a 57-yard strike to Ryan less than two minutes into the third quarter for a 33-0 lead.

Kamenski finished with 106 yards passing to complement a dominant running game.

“We've run the ball well pretty much the whole season,” Sherwin said. “We have to be able to hit a pass every once in a while and we did that tonight. There was an emphasis this week on our passing game.”

The defense was also staunch.

St. Marys had negative yardage after the first quarter and only 12 yards and two first downs at the half. One of those first downs came by penalty.

It was another week of starting in a deep hole, lamented St. Marys coach Tony Defilippi.

“We just made too many mental errors,” Defilippi said. “I don't know how many times we jumped offsides and had procedure penalties and stuff. It's the little things that are compounding and causing us to get in bigger holes.”

Defilippi also pointed to the disparity in field position as a factor.

“They have a good offense and we short-porched ourselves,” Defilippi said. “They took advantage.”

St. Marys (0-6) scored both of its touchdowns on long connections between quarterback Todd Taylor and wide receiver Cody Ritter.

Taylor hit Ritter on a 79-yard pass in the third quarter to cut the Karns City lead to 33-6 and hooked up with Ritter again on a 63-yard strike in the fourth quarter after the Gremlins had gone ahead 47-6.

Taylor completed 10 of 19 for 194 yards. Ritter had 142 yards receiving on those two scores.

“Our passing game was better today,” Defilippi said. “I thought we protected him a little better than we have in the past. That's something we'll continue to work on.”

Meanwhile, Karns City is going to continue to work on surging in the second half of the season.

The win Friday was a good start after a slew of adversity the first five weeks.

“At no point have they given up,” Sherwin said. “We've had a lot of close losses and I told the guys we've had a lot of trials and we've gotten knocked down a lot, but we've continued to get back up.

“You can't experience success until you've had some failure,” Sherwin said. “We've learned from our mistakes, hopefully. We need to have a strong second half. The first half is behind us and hopefully we can build on this one and get on a roll.”

Saint Marys 0 0 6 8 — 14

Karns City 14 12 7 20 — 53

First Quarter

KC — Hunter Jones 10 run (Steve O'Donnell kick), 5:00

KC — Devin Ryan 13 run (O'Donnell kick), 1:31

Second Quarter

KC — Erik Pfeifer 20 pass from Anthony Kamenski (kick blocked), 10:10

KC — Mitchell Kelsea 2 run (run failed), 2:58

Third Quarter

KC — Ryan 57 pass from Kamenski (O'Donnell kick), 9:20

SM — Cody Ritter 79 pass from Todd Taylor (run failed), :47

Fourth Quarter

KC — Kamenski 14 run (Jones run), 11:46

KC — Gage Cowoski 4 run (kick failed), 8:55

SM — Ritter 63 pass from Taylor (Shane Price pass from Taylor), 7:29

KC — Dalton Pyle 10 run (Run failed), :35

Individual Statistics

Rushing:Saint Marys, Bryce Walker 2-34, Devin McGrath 7-22, Cain Pfoutz 7-9, Cody Ritter 6-7, Sean Lathrip 1-1, Todd Taylor 2-(-7), TEAM 2-(-24). Karns City, Hunter Jones 19-139, Dalton Pyle 4-44, Mitchell Kelsea 8-41, Gage Cowoski 5-30, Anthony Kamenski 4-29, Josh Wimer 3-16, Devin Ryan 1-13, Corry Dunmyre 1-13, Braydon Christie 2-5, Hunter Rowe 1-(-4)

Passing:Saint Marys, Todd Taylor 10-19-194-2, Christian Coudriet 0-1-0-0. Karns City, Anthony Kamenski 3-12-106-0

Receiving:Saint Marys, Bryce Walker 4-39, Cody Ritter 2-142, Scott Potter 1-6, Devin McGrath 1-4, Shane Price 1-3, Josh Robinson 1-1. Karns City, Devin Ryan 1-57, Hunter Rowe 1-29, Erik Pfeifer 1-20.