Telegraph photo by TOM KING Campbell's Garrett Arnold gets wrapped up by Trinity's Finnian Smith (82) and Paul Thibault during the Pioneers' 36-0 win on Saturday in Litchfield.

LITCHFIELD – Each week Campbell High School football coach Glenn Costello is finding out more and more about his team.

What he discovered on Saturday after a 36-0 home loss at the hands of Trinity is the Cougars have some work to do if they want to be a factor in the upcoming Division III playoffs.

“We haven’t played a complete game yet,” Costello said, “which I guess is a good thing since the regular season really doesn’t matter. Hopefully we can get back to the drawing board (today) and clean up some of the mistakes and play a good game next week when it actually counts.”

What counted for the Pioneers (3-2) was the fact they took advantage of two interceptions thrown by sophomore QB Jackson Kanaley and turned them into a 15-0 halftime lead, despite a couple of turnovers themselves. Conversely, they got three rushing TDs from their QB, Peter

And in the second half, they scored on three of their four possessions.

“In the second half, all that happened was we kept doing what we were doing, and we were able to separate a little because we stopped hurting ourselves,” Cathcart said.

After a scoreless first quarter, Trinity’s Jordan Joyal picked off a Kanaley pass around the Cougar 30 and it set up a 6-yard TD run by Peter Allisandro to help make it a 7-0 game with 9:35 left in the first quarter.

Trinity’s Malith Yor later picked off Kanaley, setting the Pioneers up near midfield and they marched 52 yards to paydirt in nine plays, with Allisandro bulling his way in from 1 yard out and James Thibault running in a two-point conversion.

That made it 15-0 with 50.7 seconds left in the half. The Cougars also fumbled the ball away on another drive into Trinity territory earlier in the half.

“Turnovers have haunted us all year,” Costello said, “and they spark the big play.”

Up 15-0 in the second half, Trinity scored on its last three possessions: an eight-yard Allisandro run (2:20 left in the third), a 6-yard Yor run (9:48 to go in the game) and a 3-yard run for Michael Evans (3:55 left).

Early on the Cougars seized immediate momentum with a long game-opening 13-play drive that chewed up half the quarter. But it died on the Trinity 25-yard line.

And another 11-play drive in the third quarter with the Cougars still down just two scores was halted at the Pioneer 24.

“We had a couple of long drives that we weren’t able to finish,” Costello said. “When the games count, we can’t do those things.”

“They came out loaded for bear and they gave us all we could handle,” Cathcart said.

Campbell managed 203 yards of offense, but that wasn’t enough.

“Going into the season everyone said that this was a rebuilding year, playing a lot of young kids,” Costello said. “You kind of see some of those learning experiences pop up.

“Hopefully we can learn from this and go forward.”