STEUBENVILLE — Catholic Central had to wait about 24 hours longer than anticipated to start its season, but it was worth it as the Crusaders battled to a season-opening win at Wellsville on Saturday night.

Fresh off that victory, Central is now at home for four-straight weeks, beginning Saturday night when Strasburg comes to Harding Stadium.

“The kids really played hard, I thought we were aggressive,” veteran Central head coach Eric Meek said. “The only negatives that I saw from the game was we fumbled, we put the ball on the ground six times, we lost two of those six, but all six of them times it kind of took us out of drives. We maybe could have scored more points. Also, we had some offsides and some illegal procedures that I wasn’t happy about.

“I think the kids really played hard; I thought Wellsville played hard. We had a lot of kids, playing in what was their first varsity football game ever. And a lot of young kids, and the bottom line is we fought, we fought, and we continued to play to the final whistle, and we were able to get our first win.”

The opponent in the home opener is a familiar one, and one Meek and company know will be a challenge as the Tigers defeated Central 34-19 in Week 2 last fall.

“Last year we went over there and we had a veteran team and they had a young team and they beat us in their stadium,” Meek said. “Now we have a young team and they have about everybody back. They’re in a really tough conference. So we have got to take a big step forward from game one to game two to get to 2-0.”

With a young team, that jump from Week 1 to Week 2 is always an important one.

They’ll look to make that improvement as they also prepare to play their first home game of the season.

“We have a lot of guys that will be, for the first time, playing in a varsity game, starting a varsity game for the first time at Harding Stadium,” Meek said. “We love to play at Harding Stadium and we’re going to have eight Saturday games now with the Wellsville game moving to Saturday. Saturday is going to be kind of our routine.”