MAKING HISTORY — Weir’s Chad Custer (5) celebrates a touchdown against Petersburg on Saturday. (Photo by Joe Catullo)

MORRISTOWN — Here it is, the midway point of the 2017 high school football season. For two Ohio Valley teams, it appears to be a mirror image of the same time last year.

Both Weir High and Union Local, who go into battle Friday at the home of the Jets just off I70 in Belmont County, have the same records they had when the two teams met at Jimmy Carey Stadium in Weirton. Weir is 4-1 and Union Local 5-0.

“The records are the same, but each team is different from a year ago,” Weir head coach Tony Filberto said. “Each team has a lot of different personnel, so the situation is different. They have a different quarterback, and we have a different quarterback. They also have different running backs and so do we, and the two teams also have different wide receivers.

“We had only three offensive lineman back that started that game last year, and I think they are about the same. We both are different teams, so we’ll play it out and see what happens.”

Filberto hopes the result will be the same as a year ago, a 41-14 Red Rider win. After that game, both teams went on to finish 7-3 with Weir making it to the West Virginia playoffs and Union Local missing out on the Ohio playoffs by a slim margin.

Weir’s all-state lineman, Jordan Allen, intercepted two passes a year ago from his defensive end position, and running back Cody Enrietti had a big night rushing the football. Both are now members of the West Liberty University football team.

Like Weir, Union Local had a senior-dominated team in 2016 and had to replace quarterback Shane Smolenak, tailback Brian McWhorter and wide receiver Josh Bolyard. Smolenak accounted for a total of 1,700 yards in 2016, while McWhorter rushed for 1,105 and Bolyard had 546 yards receiving.

Union Local coach Bruce Stiles, in his fifth season, replaced them with junior Cal Kildow (5-8, 135 pounds) at quarterback, senior Mike Menges (5-11, 175) at running back and senior Ty Kildow (5-10, 135) on the outside. Senior Ben Howell (5-7, 150) returns as the starting fullback.

Filberto said there is a similarity between his Red Riders and the Jets offense.

“Union Local will run out of multiple offensive formations using the two-back set like we do,” he said. “They want to run from tackle to tackle, but they have enough speed back there to get to the perimeter. They want to run and throw occasionally. That’s what they have done on the films we have. We want to do that same thing.

“Whoever can stop the run game should win this football game. Or whoever can run the football should win. We ran the ball a lot last Saturday against Petersburg. We had almost 400 yards rushing. Union Local also had a big night running in their win over Edison. They have scored a lot of points in their five wins.”

Union Local had similar stats in the 54-0 win over Edison last week. They rushed for 370 yards and passed for 115.

Filberto said that defensively, the Jets use the standard 4-3 alignment with zone C overages in the backfield.

“From what we’ve seen, they seldom blitz.” Filberto said. “Our defense is a little different. We will use a lot of blitzing. Union Local is going to set back and make sure of the tackle. They want to have a lot of defensive people around the football.

“I hope we can block as well as we did last week. Our two lines are about the same in size. We could be a little bigger overall, but don’t have a big defensive tackle like they do.”

Union Local inserts senior Nate Kinney (6-6, 350) into the defensive line.

“He’s a hole-plugger,” Filberto said.

Filberto added that there were a lot of question marks at quarterback going into the game against Petersburg last week because junior starter Tyler Komorowski injured his knee in the game at Keyser. His replacement, sophomore Sebastian Spencer, was making his first varsity start.

Some of that anxiety has disappeared with Spencer playing like a veteran. All he did was lead the Red Riders to a school record 75 points while accounting for 235 total yards and three touchdowns. He completed 7 of his 11 passes for 203 yards, including scoring tosses of 20 and 5 yards. He carried the ball twice for 32 yards with a 20-yard touchdown run. And he did all of that in the first half as all of the Red Rider starters retired after the first play of the second half.

In addition, Chad Custer returned from an injury and scored four times on the ground with runs of 5, 12, 12 and 55 yards and caught a 26-yard scoring pass from Spencer. He now is included in the record book with two former Red Riders, the great Quincy Wilson and Jack Crowe, as the only Weir players to score five touchdowns in a game. Wilson did it four times in the undefeated 1998 state championship season. Kameron Davis holds the all-time Weir High record with seven touchdowns in a 2015 game.

The big game gives Custer 393 yards thus far in three games. He has only 31 total totes and seven TDs. The junior is now the Red Rider leadinig rusher and fifth among all running backs on the 11-area football teams under the Daily Times/Herald-Star coverage areas.

“Chad only weighs about 165 pounds, but he is a tough kid,” Filberto said. “We have three different running backs. Whoever the hot back is will get the ball.”

Contrast that to Union Local, which gives the ball to senior Luke Menges (5-11, 175) often. He was a starter at wide receiver last year, so there is plenty of speed there, according to Filberto.

“We have to contain the run,” he said about his keys to victory this week. “They haven’t had to throw much this year, but their quarterback is capable.

“Offensively, we have to establish the run and control the clock limiting their opportunities. We want to control the tempo of the football game. It won’t be easy. I believe Union Local is the best team in the Buckeye 8.”