At some point this season, Jeremy Gold hopes to experience a night when all the pieces of the competitive puzzle fit together, bringing the big picture into focus.

But four weeks in, parts of his Pioneer High School football team remain a blur. Six days after the Pioneers' offense struggled to connect while producing only seven points, a 62-40 Southeastern Conference victory over Skyline provided plenty of encouraging signs.

The defense, however, was a different matter, allowing too many big plays and leaving Gold to keep searching for a complete-team effort.

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Against Skyline, the Pioneer defense surrendered 431 yards of offense, including 374 through the air, failing to put its trademark style of defense on display. Despite those shortcomings, Pioneer's offense managed to do enough damage to get Pioneer back to .500.

But it's still not what Gold is looking for.

"It's a win and when you put up 62 points like that, you've got to be excited," he said. "But now, we've got to go back to the drawing board defensively and put together a game when offensively, defensively - and kicking for that matter - (it all comes together) on one night."

Pioneer (2-2, 1-1 SEC) didn't break free from Skyline until midway through the third quarter when the Pioneers scored 28 unanswered points in just over six minutes to turn an eight-point lead into a commanding 62-27 lead.

Twice, the Pioneers needed only nine seconds to pad their lead - first using a 24-yard Andy Creal pass to Drake Johnson before Creal connected on a 48-yard strike to Jeron Clayton - to put the game away.

The offensive explosion was in stark contrast to last week's SEC loss to Saline, when Pioneer continually found ways to keep itself out of the end zone. On Thursday night, Johnson scored three times and Clayton scored twice, adding a 70-yard kickoff return to his long touchdown catch.

"Going from seven points to 62 points was huge," said Johnson, who had 91 rushing yards to go along with his 48 receiving yards that resulted in two Pioneer touchdowns. "It gives our line confidence, gives our receivers, tailbacks and quarterbacks confidence that we need.

"We just knew what we were doing offensively (last week) wasn't acceptable and we needed to fix it."

But as much as Pioneer's offense seemed to solve its issues, Skyline (0-4, 0-1 SEC) gave the Pioneers' defense fits in a way it didn't expect. Eagles' quarterback Andrew Copp did the majority of the damage, throwing for five touchdowns on 25-of-47 passing, using a full contingent of receivers to keep things interesting into the second half.

Four different Skyline receivers tallied at least 66 yards through the air, highlighted by Jordan Woods' six-catch, 102-yard effort. Theron Wilson also accounted for a pair of scores, reeling in scoring passes of 24 and 43 yards.

But Pioneer's third-quarter surge of offense proved too much for Skyline, which turned the ball over four times on interceptions before scoring twice in the final five and a half minutes to get back within 22 points.

For the fourth straight week, though, Skyline just didn't have enough to keep up with a more experienced opponent.

"Skill-wise, I think we can match up with any team in the SEC," Skyline coach Randy Hutchison said. "But we're not big enough and strong enough and we don't tackle yet. This isn't going to be a rivalry until we have one of those brawls - and this was for a half. We knew we were under their skin and we knew we had their attention for a little bit there, and then they did what they do."

Jeff Arnold covers sports for AnnArbor.com and can be reached at (734) 623-2554 or by e-mail at jeffarnold@annarbor.com. Follow him on Twitter @jeffreyparnold.