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Wheeling Park Routs Hedgesville Eagles 56-0

By NICK HENTHORN 5 min read

WHEELING — As far as starts to a season go, it'd be tough to ask for a better performance than what the Wheeling Park Patriots got Friday.

Seven touchdowns, explosive plays up and down the offense, a shutout on defense and game-changing special teams efforts amounted to a 56-0 win for Park (1-0) over the visiting Hedgesville Eagles (0-1).

The Patriots' Aiden Davis threw for three touchdowns, tailback Zac Lydick ran for a pair, Mykel Davis and Keohn Stephens Jr. each caught a touchdown while Amare Johnson scored twice, once on the ground and once through the air.

Lydick also recorded two sacks, a tackle for loss, and forced a fumble. Noah Short returned a fumble for a 70-yard touchdown on defense, while Brennan Wack blocked a punt on special teams.

Despite all that, after the game, Park was eyeing improvement after the dust settled.

"We've got a ton of stuff to fix," Wheeling Park head coach Chris Daugherty said. "It's week one, we made mistakes, we'll get the film and get things right. I know it doesn't seem like we did but we did. But we played really well in all three phases of football. Our defense played well, our offense played well, I thought our special teams got after it, we executed in all three phases."

Davis, a junior inheriting the starting role under center from Brett Phillips, threw for 191 yards on 16 completions, connecting with Davis, Stephens Jr. and Johnson on touchdown scores of three, 24 and 14 yards, respectively.

Davis connected on four passes of 24+ yards, three of them to Stephens Jr., who led the team with 88 yards through the air.

Park's first taste of the '23-'24 season was on offense, a three-play scoring drive which included a one-handed pass by Stephens Jr. deep down the sideline from Davis for 28 yards. Lydick blasted in an eight-yard score from there.

"It's stuff we've seen, but not everyone else has gotten to see it," Daugherty said of Davis. "So it was the first time a lot of people got to see him do his thing. He has really good touch, he throws the deep ball well, we were able to get behind it and make some plays, he dropped it in there and it was nice to start the game like that."

A 21-yard field goal from Aidan Forget elevated the score to 9-0 Park after the first quarter.

In the second quarter, the Patriots dropped 30.

Wheeling Park's first of four touchdowns in the quarter came with two minutes gone by, after Aiden Davis delivered a throw to the flats to sophomore Amare Johnson. Davis showed off his play-extending abilities, scrambling the width of the football field before throwing to Johnson, who flexed his own elusiveness, slipping two tackles on his way to a 14-yard score.

Mykel Davis got in on the action next, catching a three-yard touchdown on a slant with 5:20 showing on the clock.

Lydick came through with a fourth-down sack on Hedgesville's next drive, and the first play for Park back on offense, Stephens Jr. housed a reception over the middle for a 24-yard score.

The misfortunes kept piling up for the Eagles, as Wack blocked Hedgesville's punt on their next drive. Working with a short field, Lydick punched in a touchdown from one yard out.

With 49 seconds on the clock, Hedgesville couldn't keep possession of the football, fumbling a snap which Park's Noah Short dove on for the recovery.

With two seconds to play, Forget drove through a 32-yard field goal going into halftime.

All told, Wheeling Park scored 17 points in the final 2:30 of the half, benefitting from sharp play by their defense and special teams.

"I thought our guys flew around and that's all I ask of them- fly around and be physical," Daugherty said of his defense. "I thought our coaches did an awesome job of having the guys ready, knowing their assignments, and I'm really happy with what we were doing with our second team defense and what they executed.

"We weren't really vanilla, we were able to call some things and those guys executed. I was happy thoroughly with the defense, the ones the twos and the threes."

Park limited Hedgesville to 32 total yards of offense, and forced four turnovers.

In the second half, the day was coming to a close for the first-stringers, but the scoring didn't stop for the Patriots.

Forget drilled a 33-yard field goal shortly into the third quarter, his third field goal of the day. Johnson ripped off a 28-yard touchdown run with seven minutes in the frame, the sophomore nabbing his first receiving and rushing touchdowns in his career.

Short put a cap on the night with a 70-yard fumble recovery and return for a touchdown after another fumbled snap by the Eagles.

Wheeling Park moves past their first test, and will hit the road for their week two game against Brashear (PA.).

"I think we've got a ton of things to fix, but our effort and our physicality won out tonight," Daugherty said. "We were able to make some big plays early, but we still have things to fix and we want to get better each week. We'll enjoy this one."

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