WELLSVILLE — Suffice it to say, Friday’s opening night opponent is a familar one to Catholic Central and Crusaders head coach Eric Meek.

That opponent is Wellsville, who Central faces in the season opener for the third-straight year after winning the last two meetings.

It’s also where Meek has made one of his previous stops during his long, successful coaching career, making the trip north on Ohio Route 7 a very familar one.

“I say it every year, I spent a lot of time there, 16 years as a teacher, lived there 12 years, head football coach there eight years, I’ve got a lot of good friends in Wellsville,” Meek said. “A lot of the kids on their team right now, their dads played for me. And of course, I know Coach (Jim) Tsilimos very, very well, we’ve been good friends for many years. So, it’s always good to play them, I have a deep respect for everybody at Wellsville.”

To get ready for the first game, Central has worked hard througn the summer with a young group following a large graduating class departing from last year’s playoff-game winning team.

“It’s been good, we’re a really young team, we only have seven seniors on the roster and we’re starting about eight underclassmen on each side of the ball,” Meek said. “It’s going to be a process where we’ve just got to keep getting better each day.”

Getting off to a good start Friday night and coming back down the river with a victory would go a long way for the youthful Crusaders getting some confidence built before coming home for the next four-straight games.

“I think it would be good for us to get some confidence because, you don’t really keep track of wins and losses and scrimmages, but, from a score standpoint, we weren’t successful, which just lets our kids know that we’ve got to keep getting better,” Meek said. “So, it would be great to get off to a 1-0 start and build some confidence.”

While Wellsville is coming off a 1-9 campaign a season ago, Meek sees a lot about this year’s Tigers that will provide his Crusaders with a challenge.

“Their quarterback, Jeron Jackson is very, very fast, he’s a dangerous runner,” Meek said. “He can run the boot, he can take off on third and long, and he’s very, very dangerous. And I think he’s the guy we need to stop offensively.

“They’ve got some big kids on the defensive end, and we’re impressed with their nose guard, he’s quick and aggressive, and they have some athletes in the secondary. So, we have got to be able to run the football, win the first down battles. And when we do throw the ball, we have got to be successful.

“We always say 60 percent completions and no turnovers.

“We just want to get on the bus and get up there and try to get our first win.”