Photo by Kristin Mazgaj Wheeling Park’s Jerrae Hawkins runs up the sideline against Steubenville last week.

WHEELING — It’s out of the frying pan and into the fire for Wheeling Park head coach Chris Daugherty and his Patriots Friday night.

Coming off a 69-28 setback to Ohio power Steubenville last Friday night, Park (3-2) welcomes fellow West Virginia Class AAA heavyweight Morgantown (3-1) to Wheeling Island Stadium this week for a 7 p.m. Friday night battle.

Both Patriot losses have come to Buckeye State teams this season while coach Sean Biser’s Mohigans will be looking to rebound from their first setback of the young campaign, a hard-to-swallow, 36-33, reversal to Musselman last week. It was a game that Morgantown trailed most of the night but rallied to take a late advantage before a touchdown and two-point conversion by the Applemen in the final 20 seconds decided the outcome.

Wheeling Park started the campaign with a pair of victories, allowing just 26 points on defense along the way. However, Daugherty’s crew has entered the meat of their schedule and in losing two of the last three games have been outscored by a 156-110 margin.

“We had a tough week on defense last week, but Steubenville makes you work on so many different levels and they are so well-coached that they make everything look so easy,” Daugherty admitted. “By no means are we pushing the panic button on defense because of what happened last week. Yes, we have some things to shore up, but the kids kept playing and we will get better.

“I have said it many times that games like that are only going to make us get better. We just have to move on and at the end of the day we want to be compared to the teams we are going to face from West Virginia. We have only played one in-state opponent so far, but that is about to change with a bunch coming up. It honestly is like starting a new schedule for us this week.”

The Patriots, who enter the week tied for the No. 16 spot in the latest W.Va. Class AAA playoff chase allowed a total of 682 yards of offense to Big Red last week, including 488 on the ground. Along the way they gave up four touchdowns of 60 or more yards.

Those numbers will have to change as the Mohigans have a pair of running backs both capable of breaking off big plays. Cody Nutter is coming off of a 130-yard performance last week while Keonn Mallett finished with 99 yards rushing and a pair of touchdowns.

Quarterback Maddox Bowers led an offense that accumulated 429 total yards with wide receiver Jacob Keir catching two passes for 88 yards, including a 77-yard touchdown pass. With last week’s loss Morgantown did drop from No. 2 in Class AAA to tied for No. 6.

“This is another team that we will face that loves to run the football,” Daugherty added. “We knew it was only going to take one or two years for them to buy into Coach Biser’s system and for them to be a force again and here they are. They are a well-oiled machine that is big and physical up front and if you are going to beat them they make you have to stop that running game.

“We don’t have many easy games, especially when we start playing our West Virginia rivals. We only played one in our first five games but there are a lot of familiar, and very good, opponents coming up on our schedule that we are going to have to be ready for.”

Wheeling Park has captured the previous four meetings in the series, including last year’s 41-6 victory, with Morgantown last beating the Patriots by a 28-3 margin in 2017.