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WELLSBURG -- The Indian Creek football team will look to continue its winning ways this week against Brooke.
The Redskins and the Bruins are set to meet at 7 p.m. Friday at Brooke Memorial Stadium.
Last week, Indian Creek bounced back from a heartbreaking loss to Union Local to defeat Weir, 52-7, last Friday night on homecoming at Kettlewell Stadium to improve to 3-1 on the season.
"It is always nice," Indian Creek head coach Andrew Connor said about his team winning on homecoming. "There was a big crowd there. It's all about community. You want to play well in front of a big crowd like that. That was important for us to do. It is was nice that we were able to be on the same page with the community that way."
Meanwhile, Washington rallied to defeat Brooke, 19-14, on the road to drop the Bruins to 0-3 on the season.
"They play hard," Connor said about the Bruins. "They have a new coach. They are trying to find themselves. They are going to come out and play hard. It is a rivalry game. Records don't matter in rivalry games. Since us and Brooke have gotten back together, the games have been competitive. We expect this one to be the same way."
Brooke lost its opener to Beaver Local, 35-0, on the road before falling to Independence, 20-0, at home.
"Their quarterback is a good player," Connor said. "He distributes the ball well. He is a big play kind of kid. They run a lot of RPOs. He does a good job of making sure they are in the right formations and the right plays."
The Green-and-Gold are solid on the defensive side of the ball.
"They run a defense that is complicated," Connor said. "They have a lot of moving parts. We have a lot of things to focus on.
"They run three down linemen. They run an odd front. They have two good linebackers that fill well in 44 and 45. They are going to present a lot of trouble for us.
"It is not something we see a lot. It can be confusing. We are going to have to spend a lot of time at practice focusing on knowing where they are coming from when they blitz.
"The way they line up causes a lot of complications. They don't just run a 4-3. It is a college defense. They are going to cause a lot of problems with our running game."
Both teams have some big guys up front on the lines.
"We're about even," Connor said. "Both teams have big kids on the offensive and defensive lines. I would say we are about the same."
The Red-and-Gold is 0-1 on the road this season. All three of Redskins' wins have come at home. Indian Creek defeated Cambridge, 41-13, in the opener before holding on and defeating East Liverpool, 20-14, in Week 2. The Jets defeated the Redskins, 27-26, in Week 3 after Indian Creek failed to convert a 2-point conversion.
"There are two things we stressed," Connor said. "There are two things we have worked on since the summer. The first is we want to establish our running game. We want to stay in front of the chains. We want to avoid long-yardage situations, and we have been able to do that.
"The second thing is defensively, we want to get to the football. We want to be able to tackle. We want to stop the big plays.
"We have been successful with those two things. We have not been giving up big plays, we have tackled well and we have been able to run the football.
"We have also been able to incorporate our passing game. We have been looking to throw more. We need to continue to be able to do that to offset our running games, so teams can't just stack the box with eight or nine guys."
Creek has had some issues with turnovers this season, however, the Redskins did not commit one last week against the Red Riders.
"We played a clean game," Connor said. "We didn't have any turnovers, and we were able to limit our penalties. Against East Liverpool and Union Local, we did not do a good job of doing that.
"Against Weir, we were able to do a good job of that. We were able to take care of the football, and we limited our penalties.
"We still aren't where we need to be, but we are headed in the right direction."
Indian Creek enters play this week in the Ohio Division III, Region 11 rankings.
Brooke defeated Indian Creek, 28-7, last season on the road.