— By Kyle Wiggs
Morgantown coach Matt Lacy wants to see more consistency on offense during the second half of the season. After scoring 28 points in the first half during a week five win over Linsly, MHS was shutout in the first half last week by Mussleman. Morgantown found the end zone just once in that 13-7 loss despite rushing for 190 yards in the game. Penalties were a major problem as Morgantown was flagged for over 100 yards in penalties for the second time in three games.
“Too many penalties on both sides the ball,” Lacy said. “We let them sustain drives with penalties and we killed our own offense with penalties.”
Morgantown and Wheeling Park have split the last four matchups. Morgantown has won each of the last two years, including a 28-3 victory at home last year. Wheeling Park won back to back games in 2014 and 2015. MHS had a four-game win streak in the series between 2010-2013.
University (3-3) at Mountain Ridge, Md. (3-2)
University expects to play the next several games without senior quarterback Logan Holgorsen after he was injured early in the Hawks’ 60-6 win over St. Albans.
“It’s a serious high ankle sprain,” confirmed coach John Kelley. “Doctors will tell you (recovery time) is four to six weeks with rest, ice and rehab. He’s rehabbing to the point where he’s not even sleeping. He wants to get back out here with us, so we’ll see.”
Holgorsen entered the St. Albans game having thrown for 1,345 yards and 15 touchdowns. University replaced him with sophomore backup J.T. Brown and with direct snaps to senior standout receiver Amir Richardson.
“We’ll play them both,” Kelley said. “We will shorten the package but we can still do a lot of things. J.T. has taken more snaps at quarterback being our JV starter, but Amir has played quarterback before as well.”
The Hawks do have a healthy Logan Raber to lean on now in the running game. Raber returned from a knee injury last week, but was held out for most of the 60-6 game due to the blowout nature of the score.
“He’ll make a much bigger impact this week,” Kelley said of Raber. “He was ready to go last week, but there was no reason to take a chance in a game like that.”
University is playing Mountain Ridge out of Frostburg, Maryland for the first time and Kelley is impressed senior running back Losefa Pau’auli.
“He reminds me of Quincy Wilson,” Kelley said “At 210 pounds, he doesn’t go down easily. They’ll line up in the “I” and in some Wing-T and try to run it down hill right at us.”
North Marion (3-2) at Bridgeport (5-1)
North Marion is coming off a bye week from which coach Daran Hays is hoping the internal focus will lead to more consistency.
“Consistency has been a problem game to game and even half to half,” Hayes said. “The Nicholas County (loss) will haunt me for a long time because we played so well on defense in the first half. We held them to under 50 yards in the first half, but there were too many self imposed hardships with penalties and such.”
North Marion has losses to a pair of unbeaten teams–#1 Fairmont Senior and #3 Nicholas County.
It’s a North Marion roster with 14 seniors and one who stands out is receiver/defensive back Desmond Fluharty.
“He’s a four-year player for us and his ability to catch the ball and make plays in space makes him pretty special,” Hays said. “His all purpose yardage is through the roof. And he is one of only two guys on the team who plays over 100 snaps a game for us because he is right back out there at safety when the other team has the ball.”
The Huskies will need a number of big plays from Fluharty and others to keep up with Bridgeport. The Indians have outscored North Marion by an average of 41-10 in the last ten games of this series.
Weir (5-1) at Fairmont Senior (6-0)
The Fairmont Senior defense has allowed an average of just nine points per game in its last five contests. Forcing turnovers has become a big part of the narrative. Last week, Elkins attempted three passes and the Polar Bears defense intercepted all three.
This week’s top-ten matchup with Weir will likely be the Polar Bears last difficult test of the regular season as their final three opponents are a combined 4-11 on the season.
Elkins (2-3) at Robert C. Byrd (4-2)
Elkins did some good things during a loss last week to top-ranked Fairmont Senior. The Tigers managed to run the football effectively in the second half as they chewed up the 4th quarter clock with a 15-play drive that ended on a Daniel Romans’ 2-yard touchdown run. Romans rushed for 100 yards on 23 carries in the game.
A ball-control approach will be the game plan again in this one against a high powered RCB offense that has averaged 42 points per game over its last three. The Eagles earned a very important victory over Lewis County last week as Ghovan Davidson rushed for 168 yards in the second half and 196 yards in the game.
Lincoln (2-3) at Grafton (3-1)
Grafton is coming off its second bye week of the season as a scheduled week off followed the September 7th cancellation of the Bearcats game at Petersburg.
Last time out, the Grafton defense held Liberty without a first down in the second half and just 95 yards of total offense in a 39-7 victory on September 21. Sophomore Blake Moore intercepted a couple of passes in that victory after being moved from linebacker to safety. Grafton rushed for 324 yards in the game as Caleb Bish scored two touchdowns.
Lincoln snapped a three game losing streak with a 41-0 victory over East Fairmont last week.
Fayetteville (4-2) at Notre Dame (3-2)
It’s a key game for Notre Dame as the Irish begin the most difficult portion of their schedule. Four of the final five opponents have winning records including Parkersburg Catholic (6-0) next week and Tucker County (5-1) later in the season.
Irish first year starting quarterback Nate Helm threw four touchdown passes to Sam Romano and Helm ran for another in a 54-0 win over Madonna last week. The Irish defense held a normally powerful Madonna offense to just 66 total yards.
Paden City (1-5) at Clay Battelle (3-2)
The Cee-Bee defense led the way in a 14-8 road win at Calhoun County last week. Clay Battelle came up with four turnovers, one setting up the game wining score in the fourth quarter as Hunter Brewer scored from ten yards out.
Clay Battelle will now play its next three games at home.
Other games:
Buckhannon-Upshur (2-3) at Lewis County (3-3)
East Fairmont (0-5) at Philip Barbour (1-5)