UNIONTOWN, Pa. — The Weir High football team is getting closer to breaking through.

While they dropped their seventh straight game to start the season last week at East Liverpool, it was the closest final score of the season. Weir was within a score, 26-19, at the end of the game.

The week prior, they led for the first time at East Fairmont.

“We played a four-quarter game for the time in our seven games,” first-year Weir head coach Quincy Wilson said. “East Liverpool has some really good players and we hung in there. I told our guys you can’t just hope to win, we have to make it happen. We had four turnovers and you’re not going to win many games that way, but we played our best defensive game.

“We’ve got three more games to put it together.”

Wilson has been happy with the way his team has continued to play hard despite going through the growing pains they have experienced.

“I talked to the team about how this is bigger than football, this is life,” Wilson said. “You’re going to go through adversity in life and keep fighting and our 40-plus guys are fighting through it, they’re not quiting. I’m proud of them, our staff and our school for hanging with us.”

To get a breakthrough win this week will take a Herculean effort as the Red Riders hit the road to take on 9-0 Albert Gallatin.

“They’re a very good team, they run the option with the dive/pitch and they do it very well,” Wilson said. “They have some size and they play hard on defense.

“They play a lot of guys both ways and they don’t have a lot of guys, so our goal is to make it a four-quarter game and see where we’re at in the fourth quarter.”

The Colonials are looking to finish an unbeaten regular season. They have a potent offense, having scored 40 or more points in all but one of their games. They have scored 50-plus four times and 60-plus three times and average 49.2 points per game.

They do give up some points, though, allowing an average of 25.4.

They do the bulk of that scoring with the ground game, as they have the potential to finish Friday night with two 1,000 yard rushers.

Senior Tee Guesman has already hit the milestone with 1,084 yards and 21 touchdowns, averaging 8.9 yards per carry. Classmate Adam Pegg has 952 yards, averaging 11.3 per carry, and 13 scores.

Albert Gallatin has compiled 48 of its 57 offensive scores and 3,389 of its 3,776 yards on the ground.