BACK ON THE FIELD — After a bye week, the Weir High football team heads on the road again this week to take on Keyser in its third-straight road and and fourth in five games. - Michael D. McElwain

KEYSER — Sometimes, despite being scheduled before the season and before anyone knows what the situation will be when a team reaches it, the bye week falls at a good time.

Such was the case for Weir High last week.

“It came at a good time for us considering our last three games we played three future playoff teams with a combined record of 13-3 and the No. 1 team in Class AA in our last game,” Sisinni said. “It couldn’t have come at a better time to get right, get healthy and basically just hit the reset button.

“We worked on a lot of fundamentals, which we do every season. We worked on eliminating the mistakes we’ve had and just tried to fine-tune our base stuff.”

With a young group, the Red Riders knew there would be some growing pains and there have been. They’ll look to take lessons learned and bounce back with the strong second half, starting this week with another long trip to the Eastern Panhandle to take on Keyser.

“We know it’s a young group and they’re learning, unfortunately we’ve had to learn some things the hard way,” Sisinni added. “Sometimes the lessons are learned through adversity. We’re sitting in a scenario where the first half of our schedule was very tough and the second half is challenging as well, but we are home a lot more in the second half after this week.”

At 1-3, the Red Riders are ranked No. 23 in the Class AAA rankings. The Golden Tornado is ranked No. 13 in Class AA. Weir won last year’s meeting, 49-21, at Jimmy Carey Stadium. This will be the first time the teams have played in Keyser since 2019.

“Keyser is 2-2 and on a two-game win streak, they started off 0-2 and now they have some things going in their favor,” Sisnni said of the Golden Tornado. “We’re going out there on the road to play a team that’s got some positive things going on and we’re just going to try go out there and play some solid football and get back to the way we played against Oak Glen.

“They’re a wing-T, no-huddle offense so it’s unique. We have a familiarity with them having played them a couple times in the past, including last year, so we know we’re getting into a challenging game.”

Keyser dropped games to Robert C. Byrd and Hedgesville before winning the last two against Berkeley Springs and Hampshire.

Through the first four games, Weir is averaging 117 passing yards and 58 rushing yards per game.

Lucas McAllister played the first three games at QB, throwing for 402 yards, three touchdowns and a pick while rushing for two more scores. Damir Mowder and Nick Dimatteis split time at the position in the Red Riders last outing, combining for 58 pass yards against Frankfort.

Thomas Davidson leads the team with 32 carries and a rushing score, while Mowder has a team-high seven catches for 126 yards and a score. Jackson Bonnar had four catches against the Falcons.

The opening kick at Keyser’s Alumni Stadium is set for 7 p.m.