NEWTOWN- After playing its last three games at James H. “Buck” Harless Stadium, Mingo Central will leave Miner Mountain and head to Raleigh County for a Friday night road tilt against the Shady Spring Tigers.
The Miners are coming off arguably their most dominating performance of the season last week against Tolsia. Norman Kennedy and Kaedon Bolding combined to rush for 311 yards and five touchdowns in the Miners 65-0 victory over the Rebels.
The victory brought the Miners four-game losing streak to a screeching halt and now the Miners will take on a resurgent Shady Spring team that has won its last three games after dropping two-of-its-first-three games to open the season.
“I was glad to see us have a game without any turnovers,” Mingo Central coach Chase Moore said. “Norm and Kaedon complement each other well in the backfield and we like the progression that they have shown this season.”
Shady Spring enters the contest just on the outside of the Class AA playoff bubble. The Tigers are ranked 17th in the latest West Virginia Secondary Schools Activities Commission rankings, but will be without six players for Friday’s game after they were ejected in last week’s 6-0 victory at Wyoming East.
“Shady is a solid team,” Moore said. “They are well coached, and it will be another opportunity this season for us to play against another good team.”
Mingo Central enters the contest with a 2-4 record and not entirely out of the playoff picture in Class AA. The Miners opened the season with a 43-12 win over Wyoming East on Sept. 3, but followed that with four straight losses to Point Pleasant (66-28), Man (7-6), Poca (22-13) and Greenbrier East (55-12).
A win would more than likely jump the Miners into the top 20 in next week’s ratings, but their playoff hopes would be dashed with one loss in the remaining four games.
“We lost a couple of winnable games and now we found ourselves in this position,” Moore said. “Going forward we understand that every game is a playoff game for us.”
Shady Spring, who missed the playoffs last season for the first time since 2017, has games left with Class AAA Ripley, AA No. 6 Liberty (Raleigh) and one-win PikeView. The Tigers are balanced on offense with junior quarterback Cameron Manns throwing for 586 yards and six touchdowns on 43-of-99 passing. Manns has also ran for four touchdowns.
Senior Caleb Whittaker leads the ground game for the Tigers with 398 yards and four touchdowns on 70 carries while senior Jacob Showalter is the leading receiver with 10 catches for 210 yards and three touchdowns. Whittaker has nine catches for 109 yards and one touchdown and sophomore Gavin Davis has hauled in 11 passes for 123 yards.
Mingo Central and Shady Spring have met just one time in school history. The lone meeting came in the opening round of the Class AA playoffs in 2019 with Central winning 13-7 at H.B. Thomas Field.
