Photo by Cody Nespor Wheeling Park quarterback Brett Phillips scrambles before throwing a touchdown against Morgantown two weeks ago.

WHEELING — Coming off of arguably its best outing of the season two weeks ago, Wheeling Park will get right back into the thick of things Friday night at 7 p.m. when Musselman (6-1), the top-ranked team in the latest West Virginia Class AAA playoff chase, pays a visit to Wheeling Island Stadium.

Coach Chris Daugherty’s 4-2 record Patriots took the week off last weekend after dropping highly-touted Morgantown by a 34-14 margin the previous Friday night. Park enters this weekend sitting at No. 13 in the big-school playoff ranks.

“You never really get everything lined up perfectly in a game, but we sure had a lot of things go our way against Morgantown,” Daugherty said. “We have to be ready to go every Friday because we have had some big games with nothing easy and we were pretty beat up after the Morgantown game. It is really nice to get a week off and get the kids back to feeling good again.

“We were able to stuff the run against Morgantown, which was great coming off what happened in the Steubenville game. It was really good to see the coaches and kids respond to that so well. When our defense is able to get off the field in three plays and we are firing on all cylinders on offense we are going to be a tough team to stop. Good defense normally leads to good offense.”

The Applemen are coming to Wheeling on the heels of a lop-sided, 62-13, victory over Hedgesville last week and have won four games in a row since their only loss of the campaign, a 62-20 setback to Martinsburg.

Quarterback Bryden Hartman, the brother of 2020 Kennedy Award winner Blake Hartman, leads the way and is coming off a game in which he ran for three touchdowns and threw for five more for coach Brian Thomas’ squad. Junior receiver Logan Shelton hauled in three TD catches while senior Ray Adames caught two.

“They are the No. 1 team in the state for a reason,” Daugherty mentioned. “They have beaten some good teams and have more points and bonus points than anyone else. They are a very well-coached team and Brian (Thomas) does an outstanding job with them.

“The big thing is you never know what you are going to have to defend because they come at you with so many different things. They run the wing-T, the spread, the option. You have to wait to see what they are lining up in before you even know what defense you need to be in. You have to put in a lot of work getting ready for them.

“On defense they run a three-man front with a lot of different things behind it. Nothing they do is standard or ordinary and you honestly have to play it by ear with them. And, oh yeah, they have another Hartman kid to worry about as well.”

Senior quarterback Brett Phillips had a monster night against the Mohigans two weeks ago, hitting 25-of-31 passes for 288 yards and four touchdowns with speedster Jerrae Hawins rushing for a score and catching six passes for 97 yards.

Jameson Maynard was also huge with four catches for three touchdowns while Mykel Davis had four grabs for 60 yards and a score and Keohn Stephens added seven for 47 yards.

The Patriots have outscored their opponents by a 228-196 margin, however, 156 of those points came in a three-week span and they have not allowed more than 14 in any of the other three contests.

“This is the kind of games you want to be playing at this time of year,” Daugherty admitted. “There are a lot of points on the line, and let’s be honest, everyone wants to host playoff games. We have four games left and they are all big ones, but this week presents a really great opportunity for us to help get where we want to be.”

The teams have met three times in the last four years with Musselman winning all three by one score, including a 25-17 victory last year.

“We honestly could have won all three of those games,” Daugherty commented. “But give them credit, they found a way to take them away from us. We didn’t get to play them the Covid year, but that was the year that we were both probably going to be in the top four in the state and might have been the best game of then all, had we got to play.”