FINDING ROOM — Weir’s Reed Reitter rushes while Mason Rice (75) watches against John Marshall on Friday. (Photo by Micheal D. McElwain)

KEYSER — Some might think that Weir High’s opponent Friday, Keyser, would be another notch in the Red Rider victory column because of the 59-0 whipping the Golden Tornado took last week at the hands of Fort Hill, MD.

Not so says veteran Red Rider coach,Tony Filberto emphatically.

“That Fort Hill team is the defending state champion in a higher class than Double A,” he said. “Keyser is a very good football team, and we need to play as hard and aggressively as we did last week to come home with a win.”

The Golden Tornado, which hung one of the three losses on Weir last year, go into the fray with a 1-1 record after opening the season with a 49-0 win over Berkeley Springs.

Filberto’s 3-0 Red Riders won a 29-26 thriller at home last week over John Marshall, a Class AAA opponent, and the points garnered in that win vaulted them into a tie with Bridgeport at No. 2 in the initial WVSSAC Class AA rankings. Keyser is ranked 25th.

“John Marshall is a quality team,” Filberto said, who joined the legendary Burdell (Jimmy) Carey in Weir annals with the second most head coaching victories at 52. “The kids know they were challenged, but they kept their composure in a game that had a lot of momentum and lead changes. They won like they were supposed to.”

One of the keys to the win was a defensive stand on fourth down at midfield late in the third quarter. When the officials brought out the chains to measure the spot, the Weir defense stopped the John Marshall ball carrier just an inch or two shy of the first down.

Making the stop were the four Red Rider players in the center of the line (Mike Zias, Garrett Johnson, Frank Ty Hudacheck and Drew Curtis). Zias and Curtis are sophomores, while Johnson and Hudacheck are seniors.

That was the key play in the game, according to Filberto.

“It was getting late, and if John Marshall made that first down they had the lead, the clock and the momentum in their favor,” he said. “If they would have punted, we would have a long way to go, so it definitely was the turning point of the game.”

The Red Riders ended up with a drive that resulted in the winning touchdown on a spectacular 16-yard run by senior Tyler Mack.

The quartet that made up the backfield in the two previous wins was down to a trio last week as speedy junior tailback Chad Custer sat it out with an injury. Custer will be back in the rotation at Keyser Friday, according to Filberto.

Also available for the first time this year will be junior Jake McCoy, a wide receiver that started at Oak Glen last year. McCoy transferred to Weir, and there were some eligibility issues that had to be cleared up. Then he had to sit out 14 days of practice, a state requirement.

“The addition of McCoy will give us some much needed depth in the wide receiver corps,” Filberto said. “It will give us the opportunity to give those guys that do a lot of running on each play an opportunity to get a blow once in a while.”

Filberto added that the Golden Tornado feature quarterback Brady Ours (6-2, 185 pounds). Ours, a senior, is the son of a former West Virginia University player and was a key in the Keyser win over Weir last year. Filberto said Ours is also the safety and was the best player on the Golden Tornado team last year.

Filberto said his defense will be tested this week because Keyser uses a wing-T offense with a lot of misdirection. It is an offense that the Red Riders haven’t seen yet this year.

“We have to play a disciplined, aggressive defense. If we begin looking at all the misdirection, they will get away quickly. We’ll work on it in practice this week. I hope we can handle the misdirection,” he said.

Another thing that concerns Filberto is the Keyser odd man defensive front with nose guard Stephen White (6-1, 270).

“I hope we can get some movement on him to get our inside run game going,” Filberto said. “We’ve had a lot of success with that, but White will be the best defensive lineman we’ve seen so far.”

Filberto said the two teams match up well in regards to size on the line. He said the Golden Tornado have a lot of speed, but may not be quite as fast as his Red Riders. He said Keyser coach John Biser likes to run his fullback and get man coverage on the outside. When they get that coverage, Ours will throw to big junior wide receiver Reginald Redman (6-5, 170).

Red Riders will board the bus for the trip to the Eastern Panhandle at noon Friday. There will be a stop in Uniontown, Pa., for lunch and another stop at a rest area near Cumberland, MD, later in the afternoon before arriving in Keyser at roughly 4:30 p.m. He said Keyser, which is home to Potomac State University, is about 10 miles from Cumberland.

“We played well last week, but we made mistakes,” Filberto said on the keys to victory. “We overcame them, but we have to clean them up in practice this week. With the two teams so highly ranked, I would expect this will be one of the featured games this week in Double A. It will be two good football teams and should be another good game.”