ON THE PLAYSHEET — Weir High coach Frank Sisinni and his Red Riders are gearing up for what they hope is a big second half as four of the last five games will be played at home. - Michael D, McElwain

WEIRTON — Suffice it to say the Red Riders are not where they planned to be through the first half of their season, sitting at 1-4 and in the midst of a four-game skid.

However, the good news for head coach Frank Sisinni and company is the back half of the schedule features four of five games at home.

That home stand and what Weir hopes is the start of a second half push begins Friday night when East Fairmont comes to Jimmy Carey Stadium on homecoming night for a 7 p.m. kickoff.

“We’re excited to open up the back half of the schedule, because other than one road game at Brooke, we’re at home,” Sisinni said. “After going on the long trips we’ve made the last couple of games, it’s going to be a refreshing change to be in our home locker room and hear our home fans at Jimmy Carey Stadium.”

The Bees sit with a record of 2-3 and are in 20th place in the Class AAA standings, four spots above the Red Riders. They have wins over Grafton and Braxton County and have dropped contests to North Marion, Bridgeport and Preston.

“They’re an aggressive teams in terms of how they spread the ball around and they have some athletes on the perimeter we’re concerned about,” Sisinni said. “We know that they are playing pretty good football right now and will be a tough task.”

Whether it’s the Bees, or any of the teams from that area, the Red Riders are aware they provide a challenge in any sport they meet in.

“The Fairmont-area teams are always a challenge in any sport. Fairmont Senior is its own entity in itself, North Marion is always good and we’ve wanted to get East Fairmont on the schedule and we were able to do that, they agreed to get back on the schedule and we’re excited for it,” Sisinni said. “It’s a two-year deal and we’re hoping to prolong that.

“You know when you’re dealing with teams from that part of the state, central West Virginia, whether it’s the Morgantown teams or the Fairmont teams or the Bridgeport, it’s a high quality brand of football that comes out of that region.

“There’s some really good coaching going on down there and they have some really good athletes in that part of the state.”

In a 55-12 loss to Keyser last week, there were some things the Red Riders feel like they can build on. Lucas McAllister threw for 128 yards and two touchdowns and ran for another 66 yards in the loss, and Weir got on the board for multiple scores after being blanked in two of its prior three games.

“We have to focus on the small successes,” Sisinni said. “We saw some of that out at Keyser, it didn’t show on the scoreboard but there were some positive things we took from that game and for us to have success this Friday we need to keep building on those things.

“We need to work on the small, obtainable things and build confidence as we go through the game.”

The biggest thing for Weir will be to get off to a good start to get the young team some confidence back early.

“I think the big first step for us is to have a positive first half and build into the second half,” Sisinni said. “It’s really important with a young team like ours to get off to a good start and get some confidence early.

“We’ve given up some big plays early in games that have messed with our psyche a little bit, so we need to prevent the home run plays on defense and get ourselves in a situation where we can move the ball down the field and eat some clock and have some success early.”

Damir Mowder and Daniel Howland each caught a TD last week. For the season, McAllister has 530 yards and is completing 57 percent of his passes with five touchdowns on two picks. He’s ran for 139 and two more scores and has a defensive TD.

Mowder now has two TD catches and leads the team with 11 catches.

After East Fairmont comes to town, the Red Riders host East Liverpool and Albert Gallatin to make it three-straight at home before going to Brooke and closing with a home game against Herbert Hoover.