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STEUBENVILLE -- Some big plays led to a big win for Catholic Central last week.
This week, they'll look for more of the same as they look to take advantage of a home-loaded back half of the schedule to make a push for the playoffs.
That push continues on Saturday night when the Crusaders welcome Southern Local to Harding Stadium for a 7 p.m. kick.
"it's always nice coming off a win, and we're coming off two in a row, trying to put a winning streak together and get three in a row," Central head coach Greg Bahen said. "The spirits are good. We're just looking to have another good week of practice and keep getting better."
The Crusaders currently sit 3-3 and are 17th in this week's Division VII, Region 27 standings, five spots on the outside looking in as the top 12 in the final standings make the playoffs.
With three of the next four games to end the regular season at home, Bahen sees a big opportunity for the Crusaders to get there.
"There's a lot of good opportunities in front of us here late in the year," Bahen said. "I've been saying all year, if we could survive and come out relatively healthy out of that opening stretch of four of five on the road, the back half was a little more friendly to us just with travel and stuff like that.
"Everything's right in front of us now. We're on the outside looking in of the playoffs right now, but a lot of that can change in the next four weeks if we take care of business and kind of keep progressing and taking steps forward each day and each week."
Southern Local comes to town with a 1-5 record and having dropped their last two games.
Their lone win came back in Week 4, a 24-20 victory over rival Wellsville.
They started the season with another local matchup, a 33-0 loss to undefeated Toronto, and fell on the road to another undefeated state-ranked team in Shadyside a week later, 49-0.
The Indians also lost to Bridgeport (36-34), at East Palestine (36-12) and last week to Columbiana (52-6).
Southern averages 12.7 points for per game while allowing 37.6 points per game on defense.
"They like to run the ball," Bahen said of the Indians. "They're under center in the I-formation a lot.
They have a good running back (Logan Mettenberger) and he's also a really good linebacker. So, we have got to know where he's at on offense and definitely know where he's at on defense, too."
Central has now won back-to-back games to get back to the .500 mark.
In the victory over Louisville St. Thomas Aquinas last week, quarterback Matty Jones had a career-high four touchdown passes, Daveon Thorn and Rahim Mitchell each had a receiving touchdown and kick return score for the Crusaders and D-lineman Nate Irvin had two sacks, a fumble recovery and a pass bat down on defense.