By Craig Meyer / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

For about 15 minutes Friday night, it seemed as if Austin Kemp could do no wrong.

If the Thomas Jefferson running back were met by a tackler anywhere on the field, he would bounce off him and keep churning forward, like a pinball ricocheting around an arcade machine.

Otherwise, he would glide behind a hulking offensive line averaging nearly 275 pounds per person, going untouched for large chunks of yardage on runs that often reached the end zone.

In his team's 44-12 victory against Belle Vernon, the senior finished with 294 total yards (235 of which came on the ground) and six touchdowns, the kind of performance that has solidified him as one of the WPIAL's top playmakers at this early juncture in the season.

"The thing with him is he can run with power, but he can also run with speed," Thomas Jefferson coach Bill Cherpak said. "He has both and he can make you miss. He's the total package."

Kemp's eye-opening performance came seven days after a similarly dominant showing in the season opener, one in which he rushed for 253 yards and averaged 7.7 yards per carry.

The victory allowed the Jaguars (2-0) to continue their recent run of domination against even the most competitive Big Nine Conference foes. In matchups against Ringgold and Belle Vernon this season, two teams widely expected to challenge them for first place, they won by a combined margin of 93-18.

With the loss, the Leopards (1-1) have dropped 14 consecutive games to the Jaguars, three of which were decided by single digits.

Though Thomas Jefferson trailed for much of the first quarter, it was just the precursor to what would become a one-man onslaught.

In a span of 12 minutes, the Jaguars scored five touchdowns, all of which came from Kemp.

A 39-yard touchdown run from Kemp gave them a 10-6 lead near the end of the first quarter and he followed that up on the first drive of the second quarter with a 17-yard run into the end zone. Three minutes later, he added a 31-yard touchdown pass to Francis Langan, a play that turned what had looked like a competitive game into a rout.

"It snowballed so fast on them that I think it kind of caught them like 'Whoa,' " Cherpak said. "We scored probably three times in the last six minutes of the quarter and it really put it out of reach."

By halftime, Kemp had already racked up 257 yards of total offense, nearly triple what the Leopards had accumulated as a team (91).

Kemp's two fumbles in the third proved that he was human, but at that point, the game's final result wasn't in question.

"It all starts with the O-line," Kemp said of his performance. "They dominated."

For all that Kemp accomplished on offense, the Jaguars defense played an equally crucial role in the sharp turnaround. After Phil Taylor's 62-yard touchdown in the first quarter, Belle Vernon went just shy of 20 minutes without a first down.

Coming off a game in which he rushed for 125 yards in a 44-14 victory against Trinity, Leopards running back Anthony Levis was limited to 3 yards on 11 carries.

The night wasn't perfect for Thomas Jefferson either, as it fumbled four times and was called for nine penalties, mistakes that visibly irked Cherpak.

But if those imperfections ended in a 32-point win, the rest of the conference -- and, potentially, Class AAA -- might have to wonder about the Jaguars' ceiling this season.

"The thing we need to do is we need to concentrate on our level and what are expectations are, not solely on who we're playing and how bad we beat them," Cherpak said.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/high-school-football/2014/09/06/Back-keeps-running-wild-for-Thomas-Jefferson/stories/201409060169#ixzz3CXcMTAix