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Patriots Looking To Make It Two in a Row

Photo by Alex Kozlowski Wheeling Park coach Chris Daugherty and the Patriots welcome St. Albans to Wheeling Island Stadium on Friday.

WHEELING — When Wheeling Park coach Chris Daugherty looks at St. Albans, he doesn’t see that is has lost four games by an average of 39.5 points this season. He believes it’s a team on the rise.

”I know defensively they’ve given up some points, but you can see there is change,” Daugherty said. ”Coach (Scott) Tinsley for a lot of years was coach at West Virginia State and won a lot of games. And he was the offensive coordinator with J.R. House at Nitro.

”They’re better. When does it turn into wins? I don’t know. I just hope it doesn’t start Friday night.”

The Red Dragons (1-4) will be in town for a 7 p.m. Friday night meeting with the Patriots (3-2), who enter 11th in the Class AAA West Virginia Secondary School Activities Commission playoff ratings.

Wheeling Park has alternated victories and defeats in each of the first five weeks — winning against Brashear, Allderdice and last week at Brooke, while losing to Bridgeport and University. But in taking down the Bruins, Daugherty believes the team may have found what it was looking for from a confidence standpoint.

”Everybody could look at our schedule a little bit different, but I thought it was difficult,” Daugherty said. ”Bridgeport is Bridgeport. Both city league teams are good enough athletically to man you up and create things you won’t see the rest of the season.

”University is a very good football team.

”It just seemed like week-to-week there were spurts of offensive energy.”

The hope, is that the second half of last week’s 54-18 victory was the match that lights the fire. The Patriots scored on six of their seven possessions with the lone exception being a kneel down on the game’s final play.

Running back Rennie Clark continued to impress, carrying for a career-high 283 yards and three touchdowns. Through five games he has accumulated 1,108 yards of total offense — 747 rushing, 151 receiving and 210 on kick returns.

”We felt all along we had a nice back coming but nobody knew about,” Daugherty said. ”Give him credit for working his butt off in the weight room, because he’s reaping the benefit of work that was unseen by anybody but us.

”Many kids don’t want to wait their turn and put in work because they want that instant gratification.

”He shocked me the first couple weeks, I won’t lie. I didn’t know if he would run with power, put his head down and get 3-4 ugly yards. He’s done that.”

Most importantly, quarterback Cross Wilkinson seems to have settled into a groove. He completed 15 of 20 for 197 yards and four touchdowns against Brooke.

”He has had spots where he looked comfortable and uncomfortable,” Daugherty said. ”What I liked last week is he looked comfortable in uncomfortable situations.

”What I mean by that is, there were still times there was pressure and he got out and ran. He showed no panic and extended the play.”

Defensively, the Patriots are getting solid if not spectacular play out of inside linebackers Scotty Meagie and Isaac Leech.

”Scotty is another one that we knew what we had. Scotty is so physical and he would have played on so many of our other teams, and played early,” Daugherty said. ”Leech has kind of surprised us.

”It’s his turn. He knew he was going to get a chance and is making the most of his senior year.”

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