BELPRE – The Catholic Central football team is looking for a big bounce back this week.

To get it, they’re taking the show on the road as the Crusaders travel to Belpre on Saturday night to start a four-week road swing and kick off the second half of the season.

They’ll need to quickly put a disappointing 48-0 loss to Wheeling Central this past Saturday in the rear view.

“We need to realize that that was not Catholic Central football, and it’s unacceptable,” Crusaders head coach Eric Meek said. “They were clearly the better football team, 100 percent, without a doubt, but we did not have the fight and the aggressiveness and the effort that we had the first four weeks, and it was very, very disappointing.

“But we need to move forward. We’re sitting here at 3-2, and we need to pick up where we left off against Bridgeport, put that one behind us, and move forward to the second half of the season.”

Central finished a four-week home stand 2-2, a road win in Week 1 at Wellsville being their only trip away from Harding Stadium thus far.

The Crusaders will not be back on Reno Field until Week 10, an Oct. 25 meeting with Cleveland East.

“We’re going to be on the road for four straight weeks, that’s just how the schedule worked itself out. And, it is what it is,” Meek said. “We have got a lot of things we need to improve this week, obviously, so we’re going to have a good hard week of practice and hopefully get on the bus and get down to Belpre and get our fourth win.”

The Golden Eagles enter the week with a mark of 2-3. The teams have one common opponent, as Belpre dropped a 43-0 loss to Oak Glen and Central takes on the Golden Bears next week.

“We have film on them, and, they’re a small school like us,” Meek said. “It’s a team that has done some good things, and they’ve also had some rough patches. They did win big last week, I’m sure that they’re going to be coming off that feeling confident, and obviously we got beat in a lopsided score, so we need to just pick up and get back to playing the type of football that we feel we can play.”

Central sits No. 9 in the first official Division VII, Region 27 standings, with the top 12 set to make the playoffs this season. Belpre is No. 23 in Division VI, Region 23.

“We played well on the road against Wellsville, hopefully we can do that again,” Meek said. “We need to definitely do better. You know, there were some kids that played very well, and they played very tough this past Saturday, but not enough. And, you know that we’re gonna find guys that are going to give full effort or, if we have to make changes, we will, but, you know, we just need guys to really put forth the effort every game, every play.”

The opening kick Saturday night is set for 6 p.m.