MAN – The cat is already out of the bag.

The Man High School football team is a force to be reckoned with this season.

The Hillbillies are 3-0 heading into Friday night’s Hall of Fame Game with St. Marys (2-1) and are expected to be the No. 1-ranked team in the state in Class A when the WVSSAC’s first Computer Ratings are due out on Tuesday afternoon.

Man will try to make it 4-0 with a win over the Blue Devils, which lost 35-0 at home to Parkersburg Catholic last week.

Game time is set for 7:30 p.m. on Friday night at Man’s George A. Queen Memorial Field.

The Billies won their third straight with last Friday’s 20-14 win over Class AA Westside. Man already owns wins over Triple-A Logan (34-7) and 2A Mount View (56-0)

Man has outscored its opponents 110-21.

Billies’ coach Harvey Arms is happy with where his team is at but knows there’s much work to be done in order to secure a playoff spot and homefield advantage.

“We’re happy to be 3-0 but we know that we still have got a lot of work to do,” Arms said. “We’re not as good as we want to be. We hope to improve every week. We know that we’ve got a lot of tough games ahead of us. These first three have been tough ones but we’ve got seven more to go. Most of those are going to be tough ballgames.”

In last week’s win over the Renegades, Man led 17-14 after one quarter of play. The second and third quarters were then scoreless before the Billies’ Derrick Earnest booted a 37-yard field goal with 2:34 left in the game.

Earnest played a big role in Man’s win. He kicked a 44-yard field goal with 3:31 left in the first quarter to break a 14-14 deadlock. He missed, however, from 23 yards out on a third field goal attempt but kicked the ball into the end zone three times for touchbacks.

“The game was tied 14-14 in the first quarter and the only two scores after that were his two field goals,” Arms said of Earnest. “That’s big for us. It’s not only his field goal kicking it’s his ability to kick the ball deep on kickoffs that is also big for us. It’s not just Derrick. Our punter, Ryan Crawford, has also punted the ball well and has given us good field position. The special teams has been big for us in all three games.”

Derrick Lomax and Brandon Plymale added TD runs of 6 and 19 yards in last week’s game. Westside led 7-0 with Travis Whitten’s 90-yard kickoff return for a touchdown on the opening kickoff.

Man was outgained in total yards, 176-171, by Westside.

The Billies had 44 rushes for 115 yards on the ground. Westside had 47 carries for 174 yards.

Man quarterback Ryan Crum was 3-of-7 passing for 56 yards. Westside was just 1-of-5 for two yards in the air.

The Billies were 2-of-2 on fourth down conversions but just 1-of-12 on third down conversions against Westside’s tough defense.

Man won the time of possession battle 32:05 to 17:55.

Plymale had 18 carries for 94 yards. Lomax had six rushes for 17 yards.

Michael Lomax had four attempts for 10 yards. Crum had 13 carries for 12 net yards. He was sacked three times.

Whitten had 23 carries for 130 yards to lead the Renegades.

Jeremy Hatfield had one catch for 37 yards for the Billies.

Evan Riggins had one catch for 13 yards, while Earnest had one grab for six yards.

On defense, Manny Gibson had seven tackles to lead Man. Zack Underwood had six, while Earnest, Cody Owens and Plymale had five stops each. Jimmy Duba had four tackles. Ryan Crawford, Tyler Dunigon and Riggins had three each and Andrew Hale and Hatfield had two each. Brent Ferrell, Corey Kinningham and Derek Lomax had one tackle each.

Duba, Ferrell and Earnest each had a sack.

Gibson, Hale and Owens each had a fumble recovery.

Steven Craddock and Earnest both had interceptions.

Man’s defense has given up only two touchdowns all season long when you negate Whitten’s kickoff return score on the Billies’ special teams last week.

“We’re real happy with what we’ve done so far but we’re not going to be pleased to stay there. We know that there’s a lot of things that we need to do to get better, so, hopefully, we can get into the playoffs and compete,” Arms said.

St. Marys is led by quarterback Zach Davis. He was intercepted by Cole Cwynar last week for a 53-yard touchdown, however, as the Crusaders cruised to a shutout win.

Davis was picked off three times and was just 1-of-10 through the air.

St. Marys didn’t have that much luck on the ground either as the Blue Devils were held to only 48 yards rushing. Derek Renner led the way with 32 yards on the ground, 26 of which came on a single carry.

The shutout marked the first time St. Marys had been blanked since falling 23-0 to Williamstown in 2007.

St. Marys is 2-0 against Man as the Blue Devils beat the Billies in 2007 and 2008.

Despite last week’s misfortunes against Parkersburg Catholic, Arms said he expects a tough battle from St. Marys on Friday night.

“We’ve played them two years in a row and they are a physical team,” he said. “They lost last week but they had a big blow when they lost their starting quarterback the week before. That puts a lot of heat on you when you have to get another quarterback ready in a week. I’m sure they will be working hard for this week and we expect another tough game.”