Perusek dominates Rangers in full-time return THE SCORE

It was the Nick Perusek show in North Ridgeville, as the junior running back led Avon past the Rangers, 56-21.

Perusek, who returned to the field in full strength for the first time since Aug. 31 after suffering a high ankle sprain, picked up 248 yards of total offense while leading all rushers in the game with 198 yards on 14 carries and four touchdowns.

“He’s pretty special as you saw,” Avon coach Mike Elder said about Perusek. “We haven’t really had him since the Olmsted Falls win and then last week he was able to come back, but we only gave AVON 56, NORTH RIDGEVILLE 21

him three carries against Lakewood, but you saw what he can do — he’s special. If he stays healthy for us we’re pretty good on offense.”

With the win, the Eagles improve to 7-1 on the season and 6-1 in the Southwestern Conference, while the Rangers fall to 2-6 on the year and 2-5 in league play.

Avon got on the board early in the first quarter, after Perusek took off on a 27-yard run, giving them a 7-0 lead with 9:31 in the game.

However, three plays into their first series and North Ridgeville turned the ball over on an interception, as sophomore defensive back Kam Erskine came up with the grab for Avon on their four-yard line.

Meanwhile, Avon scored ten plays later when junior Cole Zambrosky found the end zone on a one-yard carry, giving the Eagles a 14-0 edge in the first quarter.

As for North Ridgeville on their second series, they appeared to be much better on offense, as they put together a 16 play 74-yard drive, with senior running back Cade Riley scoring on a four-yard touchdown run, cutting Avon’s lead to 14-7.

“I watched this team on film, and they kind of have found an identity physically running the ball at people,” Elder said of North Ridgeville’s rushing attack. “They had some success running the ball against us, but we kept them out of the end zone and that was the key. Once our offense got rolling I thought we took their will away by jumping on them in the first half, otherwise, this team has played a lot of people down to the wire and I’m talking about all the good teams in our league.”

Nonetheless, Perusek found the end zone again three more times, as he chipped off runs of 16, 25 and 37-yards, for a 35-7 lead going into halftime.

Overall in the first half, Avon had 401 yards of total offense, compared to North Ridgeville’s 130.

“We’ve had a lot of guys in and out our lineup for various reasons,” Elder said. “We’ve had a lot of injuries, so it’s been hard to get that traction going where we feel really good about ourselves. I think we’re moving in the right direction and we’ve shown it in practice and tonight’s performance was darn near perfect.”

North Ridgeville in the second half managed to pick up two scores, as Cale Bright and Jacob Dunstan found the end zone, but they also surrendered 21 points to Avon on defense.

“We didn’t play well enough in any aspect,” North Ridgeville coach Luke Durbin said. “You go the first half and can’t get a stop defensively against a team like this, you can fall behind very quickly. Then the second half we tried to establish some things, and we did some things better, but obviously, it wasn’t good enough.”

For Avon, their next two final games of the season will be against Amherst and Berea-Midpark, two teams who will more than likely finish the season with winning records.

“We recognize that playoff football starts for us now,” Elder said. “These are both caliber playoff teams coming up that we will be playing, and who we want to be is in games likes this against these people and we know that if we don’t play well they could both beat us. We love those challenges and I think our kids will be excited about the Amherst opportunity next week.”