North Allegheny had its annual homecoming festivities last night. Then the Tigers' football team went out and continued another tradition -- beating up on Shaler.

This has become almost an annual thing at North Allegheny. It goes something like this: The weather starts to cool, the leaves start to turn colors ... and the Tigers beat Shaler.

This time, North Allegheny belted visiting Shaler, 34-6, in a big WPIAL Class AAAA Northern Six Conference game in front of a large crowd at Newman Stadium. It was the 22nd time in the past 23 years North Allegheny defeated the Titans.

"We know all about how many years we've beaten them," said North Allegheny quarterback Mike Locke. "It's on Web sites. It's everywhere. Everyone brings it up."

It was the second year in a row Shaler brought an undefeated record into Newman Stadium. Last year, the Titans were 6-0. This time, they were 5-0 and 1-0 in conference. A year ago, Shaler got spanked, 27-7.

First-year Shaler coach Neil Gordon got his first taste of the Titans' football rivalry with North Allegheny and couldn't have liked it. North Allegheny used a balanced offense and held Shaler to 65 yards rushing.

Gordon was ousted as Penn Hills' coach after 21 seasons when the school board decided to open his job. A group of about a dozen or so Penn Hills players came to the game and watched from the sideline in support of Gordon. Penn Hills played Thursday night against Central Catholic.

"That makes me feel good," Gordon said. "But my bitterness towards Penn Hills is certainly not toward the coaches and players. It's to other people there. Heck, [the players] are still my boys."

For North Allegheny (4-2, 2-0), it was the second consecutive impressive performance, one week after the Tigers blew out Seneca Valley. It makes you wonder how this team lost to Altoona and Upper St. Clair.

"They're good," Gordon said of North Allegheny. "They have some size up front. They're obviously well-coached. They have great quickness and very, very good speed. One of the keys to our 5-0 start was the fact that we were faster than most of the teams we played. We didn't have that advantage tonight. They were very, very quick."

North Allegheny senior receiver Brian Austin, the WPIAL Class AAA 100-meter champion last spring, caught six passes for 58 yards and a touchdown. Sophomore running back Alex Papson rushed for 115 yards on 26 carries and scored three touchdowns. Locke completed 10 of 14 passes for 122 yards and two touchdowns.

"We've been in a lot of big games already, and I think that has helped," Locke said.

North Allegheny coach Art Walker said, "We could've been 0-4 and still been a pretty good team because we played some good teams."

North Allegheny looked like an excellent team in the first half as the Tigers scored on their first three possessions to grab a 20-0 advantage.

"I don't think we're ready yet to handle a 20-0 punch in the face and then come back," Gordon said.

North Allegheny needed only six plays to drive 65 yards for a score on the opening drive. Locke capped the march with an 11-yard touchdown pass to Austin. Shaler turned the ball over on downs at the North Allegheny 34 on its first possession, and North Allegheny then drove 66 yards in 11 plays for a score, with Papson running the final 2 yards for the touchdown.

"When you get that first score, stop them and get another one, that puts them into a different realm of how they're going to call their offense," Walker said of Shaler.

Papson scored on an 8-yard run with 5:40 left in the first half, and Shaler's only points came with 2:51 left in the half when Tyler Bills hit Jesse Della Valle on a 50-yard touchdown pass. Bills finished 12 of 18 for 151 yards.

But when North Allegheny scored on its first possession of the second half, this one was over. Gabe Searles got the touchdown on a 19-yard pass from Locke. North Allegheny's final touchdown came on another time-consuming drive (12 plays, 50 yards), and Papson scored again on a 1-yard run.

"This is our sixth game now, and everyone is just coming together," Locke said. "On offense, it just seems like whatever we need to do, we can do."

Gordon said: "I told our guys this is not a one-game season. I told them it was a four-game season. We can't put too much into this game."