Football Xtra

Golden Bears look to bounce back in home opener

NEW MANCHESTER -- The Oak Glen football team faces another still challenge this week as it takes on St. Marys in its home opener.

The Golden Bears and the Blue Devils are set to face off at 7 p.m. Friday night up at the Bears Den.

Oak Glen enters this game coming off of a 38-7 loss to Weir last week inside Jimmy Carey Stadium.

"I thought we had a real good game plan last week," Oak Glen (0-1) head coach Doug Taylor said. "Weir is a good team. We had some self-inflicted wounds. It was our first game, so there were some first game jitters, and we had some kids starting for the first time. Hopefully, we got that all out of our system.

"We just want to improve. They say your biggest improvement is from Week 1 to Week 2. Hopefully, that is the case again this year."

St. Marys enters the game coming off of a 34-14 victory last Wednesday at Doddridge County.

"It does not get any easier," Taylor said. "They are ranked in the polls. I think they are ranked No. 6 in the state of West Virginia.

"They are well coached. They are aggressive. Defensively, they want to stop the run. They are going to be a challenge for us."

The Blue Devils like to run the ball and throw play-action passes off of that.

"Offensively, they run the ball 75 percent of the time," Taylor said. "They run the ball well. They will run it out of multiple formations. They use the play-action pass as a complement to their running game.

"We are going to have to take away the run, but we are going to have watch out for the play-action pass."

The Red Riders scored five touchdowns and kicked a field goal en route to its victory against the Golden Bears as Weir retained the Carl Hamill Trophy. Three of Weir's touchdowns came through the air, while the other two came on the ground.

"Their quarterback threw three exceptional passes," Taylor said. "They were really good passes. Malachi Stromile threw some perfectly-placed passes. They were right on the nose.

"I thought we did a pretty good job against the run. They had a couple long runs, but we held Corey Lyons to like 51 yards. We held him in check. They just passed the ball exceptionally well."

Oak Glen matches up pretty well size-wise against St. Marys.

"We should be all right," Taylor said. "They have a couple guys who are 250 or 260. They are bigger than us. No matter what, you have to play the game."

The Golden Bears were hampered by the injury bug all last season, and the boys from Hancock County are battling it again this season.

"Anthony Burt has a high ankle sprain," Taylor said. "He's not 100 percent. We are going to hold him out until Thursday, and then we will take a look at him."

After a rough opener on the road, Oak Glen is looking forward to playing at home this week.

"I hope so," Taylor said asked if his kids will be more comfortable playing at home this week as compared to on the road. "Hopefully, we got the first game jitters out of the way. We are going to be back home. We are going to be playing at our stadium. It will be familiar territory for us.

"We are going to be playing in front of our home crowd, but we still have to play the game. They are a really good football team.

"We are trying to come up with a game plan that will help us execute on both sides of the ball."