It took Marian a little while to get warmed up on Friday night. But fortunately for the Colts, KJ Snerr was on fire right from the start.

Snerr raced 56 yards for a touchdown the first time he touched the ball and finished the night with 181 yards rushing and three scores to lead Marian to a 40-20 Anthracite Football League victory over Minersville."KJ is a great player and a great kid," said Marian coach Stan Dakosty. "He runs the ball hard and he's a threat to go the distance every time he touches the ball."The Colts needed Snerr's big game, especially early on against an upset-minded Minersville team.The Miners (0-3) led 13-12 late in the second quarter before Marian eventually took control."I'm so proud of our kids," said Minersville coach Pat Mason. "To lose by 40-some points each of the last two weeks and come out and give the fight we did tonight says a lot about our kids."I consider Marian the No. 1 (Class A) team in the District and we played right with them for two and a half quarters, but football games are four quarters. Marian is such a well-coached team that you can't make mistakes against them and unfortunately we made a couple of mistakes tonight that hurt us."Snerr had touchdown runs of 56, 42 and two yards in the game. But his biggest run might have been one that didn't go for a score. With Marian trailing late in the opening half and facing a third-and-24 call in their own territory, Snerr took a handoff, got to the second level, and then outraced the Miners' defensive backs to the sideline. He picked up 25 yards and a first down on the play.Two plays later, Ethan Kuczynski hit Matthew Stanziola with a 35-yard TD pass to give the Colts a lead they would never relinquish."Our line opened a big hole and once I got through it, I was able to bounce it outside," said Snerr. "I saw the first down marker and knew that I could get there."But all the credit has to go to our offensive line. They not only gave me plenty of room to run on that play, but they were opening holes all night long."Leading 18-13, Marian took control in the second half. The Colts got scoring runs from Kuczynski, Snerr and Hunter Nause to make it 40-13 with 11:19 to play.The Colts' offensive explosion coming out of the lockers had Dakosty happy, but it was the improved defensive play that had him most excited."Give our assistant coaches credit," said Dakosty. "We made some changes at halftime that worked very well."I also think our kids played much better in the second half. We weren't happy and let them know that in the locker room. We made them aware of where we were and where we wanted to be. I think they realized they needed to play better and did that in the second half."THE COUNTDOWN ... The victory was the 299th of Dakosty's career. His next win will make him just the 12th coach in Pennsylvania high school football history to hit the 300 mark.WAKE UP CALL ... After allowing 10 first downs and 163 yards of offense to Minersville in the game's first 14 minutes, Marian's defense finally came alive. Over the next 28 minutes, the Colts surrendered no first downs and limited Minersville to 41 yards of total offense.BALL CONTROL ... Marian had the ball just three plays in the opening quarter while the Miners ran off 21 plays. The Colts time of possession in the quarter was just :56. "It was frustrating," said Dakosty. "We thought we could do some things offensively against them, but we couldn't get the ball."BIG PLAY COLTS ... Marian ran just 40 plays from scrimmage, but had 11 rushing plays and three pass plays that produced gains of at least 10 yards in the game. "We've really been hurt by big plays the last couple of years," said Mason. "We've given up way too many long gains."