photo by: Nick Henthorn

Wheeling Park’s Brennan Wack streaks down the field during the Patriots’ regular season game against Steubenville. Park takes on Musselman in a first-round playoff matchup Friday.

WHEELING – The Wheeling Park Patriots are where they thought they’d be at the start of the season- towards the top of the newly-created Class-AAAA.

Where others saw the Patriots ending up, though, may have needed some adjusting.

“Our team has gotten better and better each week,” Wheeling Park head coach Chris Daugherty said in a phone interview Wednesday. “I think in early August, September, there wasn’t anybody in the state or the OVAC who thought Wheeling Park was going to do well. The important thing is, the kids felt like we would be fine and the coaches felt like we would be fine.

“Kids stepped up, credit to them, they’ve had an exceptional season because I think we’ve had one of the most difficult schedules around. Our kids really stepped up to the challenge. They put us in a position where we’re fourth in the state. I don’t love that there’s only 16 teams in 4A, but at the end of the day we don’t make those decisions we just practice and try to get to the best version of us. I think that we’ve gotten very close to that this year and I’m proud of the kids.”

Wheeling Park (7-3), seeded No. 4 in their playoff field, will host No. 13 Musselman (2-8) on Friday at Wheeling Island Stadium for a 7 p.m. start.

The Patriots ended their regular season strong, winning four of their last five, but a week-10 bye coupled with a one-week postponement to the playoffs has made for a start-and-stop situation for Park.

“I do worry about, you know- we won a game, then we were off, then we played John Marshall, now we’ve been off again,” Daugherty said. “I worry about rust a little bit, so I think it’ll be very important to have a fast start in this game.”

The Patriots have the talent to start fast against Musselman, who won their meeting vs. Hedgesville this year, and received a second win after the regular season when Martinsburg was forced to forfeit their victory over the Applemen due to participation of an ineligible player.

Forfeitures have been on Wheeling Park’s mind quite a bit since the conclusion of the regular season.

The Patriots were originally slated to face Spring Mills, who were thrust into a much lower seed after being told to forfeit four of their wins. With the reversal of that decision last week, Spring Mills jumped back up to the No. 2 seed in Class-AAAA, and set up Park to face Musselman.

“Brian [Thomas, Musselman head coach] does a very very good job out there,” Daugherty said. “They’ve been one of the top programs in the last three or four years. But they’re young right now.

“Brian is the type of guy who makes you work no matter what. He’s going to make changes, he’s going to make you adapt to things. This year’s a lot of the same stuff. He’s kicked onside kicks- there’s been games this year where they kick onside kicks every time they kick off. He’s faked punts. He’s moved to a single-wing offense, which you don’t see very often. They’ve gotten better each week at running that offense, which you’d think they would. I know at the end of the day, to take a young team and play his schedule, it’s very difficult. You can do things right, but when you’re playing with freshmen and sophomores and some green juniors, his schedule is very demanding.”

Wheeling Park looks to be healthy heading into their meeting with the Applemen. Junior running back Brennan Wack turned in a regular season where he rushed for 1,753 yards- third-highest in West Virginia- and 23 touchdowns, while sophomore quarterback Jay Bordas finished his first year manning the helm with 1,463 yards and 16 touchdown tosses. The trio of Kolin Wiley (456 yards, six TDs), Jameson Maynard (400 yards, five touchdowns) and Owen Dobrzynski-Hines (397 yards, two TDs) have been the Patriots’ top pass-catchers.

Maynard has spear-headed the Patriots defense with 127 total tackles, 17 tackles-for-loss and three interceptions at the linebacker position, all team-highs.

Wheeling Park defeated Musselman 48-13 in the two teams’ meeting on Sept. 13. The Applemen hold a 4-2 advantage all-time head-to-head in six meetings dating back to 2018.