photo by: Nick Henthorn

Wheeling Park’s Brennan Wack runs down the sideline during a regular season game against Steubenville last season.

WHEELING — Wheeling Island Stadium’s lights will turn on for the first Football Friday of the year very soon.

With several returning key pieces and a strong offseason behind them, the Wheeling Park Patriots are preparing for their first outing of the year, coming against Parkersburg South at home on Friday– a game that can’t get here soon enough for Park.

“It’s good to have a game week,” Wheeling Park head coach Chris Daugherty said. “That’s why you do all this as a coach and as a player and, you know, with us going back to school a little bit later than normal and all the extra practice that you get with the flex days, it’s time to play regardless of win or lose. It’s time to get to a game night and play a game.”

Wednesday was the first day of school for Wheeling Park students.

Friday will make back-to-back years that Wheeling Park and Parkersburg South, who both us the Patriot mascot, play in week one. Last year, Wheeling Park won 35-14. Daugherty knows that his teams’ Patriot counterparts present a challenge under first-year head coach Larry Thompson.

“They look similar to how they always look,” Daugherty said of Parkersburg South. “They have a handful of athletes. They’re always big. They’re a physical school. They’re always tough kids. They got a new head coach, but they look very similar to when Nate [Tanner][ was there. Larry [Thompson]’s doing a lot of the same things. I’m sure, you know, Larry has some different schemes and thoughts, but we won’t see them until Friday night.”

“But, you know, all in all, we’ve had a great series with them in the last 15 years or so, and I would think this will be a very good high school football game.”

All-time, Wheeling Park is 22-14 against Parkersburg South in a series dating back to 1976.

Wheeling Park returns playmakers like senior running back Brennan Wack, the reigning Curt Warner Award winner, junior quarterback Jay Bordas, senior wide receiver Owen Dobrzynski-Hines, and the senior safety duo of Isaac Sands and Jed Hunley.

While Wheeling Park spent the summer figuring out who would fill the spots of All-State first team linebacker/tight end Jameson Maynard, All-State first team offensive lineman/defensive lineman Hunter Means, All-State second team linebacker Coldin Burkhart, and others, Daugherty now knows who will be next-in-line in his starting platoon– even if the Patriot faithful may have to wait until Friday night to find out for themselves.

“There’s no doubt when you go back into June, we had some question marks and had some new linebackers and had some new offensive linemen,” Daugherty said. “And, you know, we had to find some guys, some defensive linemen too. And all those spots are filled.

“Guys have had a lot of practice now and they know what they’re doing. And so our question marks are kind of answers now. We know who’s who and I think we’ve got a good group of guys and it’s just time to play football now. Practice is over and like I said, competition for positions is over. It’s time to go play.”

Kickoff is at 7 p.m.. Daugherty is expecting a good turnout for the start of the Patriots’ football season.

“Parkersburg South, with a new coach, their fans tend to travel well. With this being our opener, we usually have a good crowd too,” Daugherty said. “So I think it’ll be a good game. It’ll be a good game one.

“Both teams are capable of winning this game. I think it’ll probably be one of the highlighted openers in the state.”