Picture-perfect California deals Avella first loss

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California's Alan Dennis (2) runs for a first down past midfield and is brought down by Avella's Chas Rush (1) in a second quarter drive in the September 19 game at Avella.

Mark Marietta/For the Observer-Reporter

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California's Landon Abercrombie (20) outruns Avella' Noah Kimberland (32) and scores from the six to put the Trojans up 30-0 over the Eagles late in the second quarter of the September 19 game at Avella.

Mark Marietta/For the Obsever-Reporter

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Avella Quarterback Chas Rush looks for receivers as California defenders Noah Layhue (50) and Malachi Peak (1) converge in the first quarter of the September 19 game at Avella.

Mark Marietta/For the Observer-Reporter

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California's Chase Shemansky (10) spins into the endzone to end the first half with a fourteen yard Trojan touchdown run that put California up 36-0 over the Eagles on September 19 at Avella.

Mark Marietta/For the Observer-Reporter

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California's Adin Keys sprints for the endzone on a 67 yard pass reception from Logan Hartley that put the Trojans up 14-0 over the Eagles in the first quarter of the September 19 game at Avella.

Mark Marietta/For the Observer-Reporter

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By Joe Tuscano

For the Observer-Reporter

newsroom@observer-reporter.com

AVELLA – The picture of the Class A Tri-County South Conference standings became a little clearer Friday night at Avella.

The Trojans of California took control early and breezed to a 42-0 victory.

California came into the game tied with Jefferson-Morgan, Avella and Beth-Center for first place in the conference with 1-0 records.

The win pushed California’s record to 4-1 overall while Avella lost its first game in five outings.

Avella came out and caught California by surprise with an onside kick to start the game and the Eagles recovered. But that was one of the few bright spots for Avella in this game. Two consecutive false starts and a 20-yard loss off a bad snap ended the drive.

It went from bad to worse as California scored 36 unanswered points to take a 36-0 lead in at halftime. What made that so surprising was that Avella’s defense had allowed an average of 6.0 points per game. The 36 points Avella allowed were 12 points more than the Eagles allowed through four games this season.

Malachi Peak started things off with a 2-yard touchdown. That was followed by a 67-yard touchdown pass to Adin Keys from Logan Hartley.

Chas Shemansky and Landon Abercrombie capped two California drives with runs of 8 and 6 yards, respectively to stretch California’s lead to 32-0.

Shemansky scored on a 14-yard run to send the game into the Mercy Rule for the second half.

With the Mercy Rule, the second half flew by. There was no scoring in the third quarter.

In the fourth quarter, California’s Brandon Meier broke over from 9 yards out with a little more than nine minutes to play.

Shemansky scored two touchdowns and ran in a two-point conversion.