photo by: Nick Henthorn

Wheeling Park’s Isaac Sands tries to get the edge against the Fairmont Senior defense during the Patriots’ game last week at Wheeling Island Stadium.

BUTLER, Pa. — The Wheeling Park Patriots are road warriors the rest of the way– but the cavalry is coming.

After their home game against Fairmont Senior last Friday, Wheeling Park (4-3) will play their final three games of the season on the road, starting with this Friday, where the Patriots will journey to face the Butler Golden Tornado (7-1). A tough way to end the season, but the Patriots have a reason to rejoice too– their star tailback, senior Brennan Wack, is looking probable to return from injury this week, in some capacity.

“We’re hoping that we get some plays out of him,” Wheeling Park head coach Chris Daugherty said of Wack. “I don’t know if it’ll be a full game or not, but we are hoping that Brennan– he’s very close to returning. So, you know, could end up 20 plays, could end up 10, I don’t know, but we’re hoping to get a little bit of time out of him this week.”

Wack, who’s missed the last two weeks of action, put up a full season’s-worth of stats in his limited time with 1,205 yards and 17 rushing touchdowns.

In his stead though, senior Isaac Sands, a stalwart at safety for the Patriots, stepped into the backfield and has played well, rushing for 187 yards and two touchdowns last week vs. the Polar Bears.

“I think everybody has seen Isaac Sands step up, he’s done a great job at tailback. But that’s a large workload because Isaac plays defense, he’s playing special teams, he’s taking 30 carries on a Friday night. So getting Brennan back allows Isaac to play at a higher level at all his positions, at wide receiver and DB. But you’ll definitely see Isaac carry the ball a little bit this week.

“And I thought last week we did a good job of throwing the ball, Jay and our receivers. I think we threw the ball 30 times and they did a great job of finding big plays for us and getting in the end zone.”

Bordas threw for a season-high 307 yards last week with three touchdown passes.

Wheeling Park will have their hands full with the opposing quarterback, junior Nicco Baggetta, who has 11 passing touchdowns and eight rushing touchdowns for the Golden Tornado.

“They got, you know, very similar to Fairmont, they got a quarterback that can run it, that can throw it, they’ve got some receivers that can make plays, they got a pretty good running game. I think offensively they stress you out in a lot of different ways. And so we got a big task ahead of us as far as slowing them down. I think the quarterback is the key to everything. We got to stop him.”

Wheeling Park’s played their final regular-season game at Wheeling Island Stadium this season, and currently sit at No. 8 in the WVSSAC Class AAAA football playoff ratings. Daugherty thinks his team is ready for any road trip.

“We say it all the time, hey, it’s a business trip. You got to be ready. If you want to win in the playoffs, you’re gonna have to play on the road. And so, I just think it’s an opportunity to see how you handle trips. But overall, our kids have responded. We won a big game out at Spring Mills on the road, three and a half hours. They were number one in the state at the time and they’ve continued to win after we’ve played. We’ve got some good road wins and so, really, no big deal.”

Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. at Art Bernardi Stadium.