slideshow

The Shady Spring Tigers come to town on Friday night to take on the Logan High School football team.

And that means one thing.

Adam Weeks will be here.

Weeks, Shady’s all-state quarterback, leads the Tigers against the Wildcats in Friday night’s clash at Logan Stadium. Game time is set for 7:30 p.m.

Logan (1-0) is coming off last week’s convincing 33-0 win at home over Class A Man in the season opener.

Shady (0-0), which moved up to Triple-A this season, begins its season this week after taking a bye week last Friday night. The Tigers replace Nicholas County on Logan’s schedule. The Grizzlies, which lost 25-0 to Logan last season, have dropped back down to Class AA.

Logan will have its hands full with Weeks.

The 6-foot-3, 220-pound all-state senior QB completed 128-of-200 pass attempts his junior year (64 percent) for 2,368 yards, 28 touchdowns and seven interceptions.

The Tigers reached the Class AA semifinals a year ago by going unbeaten in the regular season and then eliminating Scott and River View in the first two rounds of the playoffs. They then had to face state powerhouse Wayne in the semifinals and were thrashed 52-9 at home by the eventual state champion Pioneers to finish 12-1.

Shady has been a playoff staple over the years, also making it to the state Final Four round in 2000 and 2004 before being ousted.

The Tigers hope to go far again this fall in West Virginia’s highest classification.

If they do, Weeks is the man that will have to take them there.

Weeks has received a lot of interest from college scouts and has already reportedly made visits to Harvard and Duke.

“He’s a great quarterback,” Logan coach Gary Mullins said of Weeks. “He moves around well and throws the ball well. He has two tremendous running backs there behind him. Their offensive line looks very big and very physical.”

Weeks will put Logan’s secondary to the test.

“We’ll get to see just how good we are this week,” Mullins said. “We feel like our secondary is one of our strong points to our team. We hope we can step up to the task and deliver on Friday night.”

Shady Spring has some rebuilding to do heading into the season as top running back Coty Frye has graduated and leading receiver Chase Connor — a two-sport athlete — has opted to concentrate on basketball and not come out for the football team this fall.

The Tigers were one of three teams — Point Pleasant and Oak Hill being the others — which moved from 2A to 3A this season.

“They are really good,” Mullins said. “We watched them on film and they play really physical and they’ve got really good skilled players. It will be a really good test for us and we will have to be at our best if we want to come out with a win in that game.”

Logan jumped on top of Man 7-0 last week as Brant Williams returned a kickoff 80 yards for a touchdown. The Wildcats never trailed and forced the Hillbillies into seven turnovers, including four picks of Man freshman quarterback John Thomas Keffer.

Logan senior quarterback Chris Marcum was 7-for-12 passing for 51 yards.

Brynden “Worm” Street had six rushes for 69 yards and a touchdown. Fullback Tyler Vernatter had two TD runs.

Vernatter also led the Logan defense with 13 tackles. Thomas Hunter, Teddy Nelson and Nick Turner had 10 stops each. Marcum had two interceptions, while Tyler Workman and Clayton Marcum had the others. Marcum’s was a pick-six as he returned the ball 60 yards for a touchdown.

Chris Marcum, Kade Doss and Stephen Dilly had fumble recoveries for Logan. Vernatter, Williams and Brian Craft had one sack each.

Mullins said his team is injury-free heading into the game with Shady.