Mike Flannery didn’t hold back in the preseason when I spoke with him about his 2015 Pilots.

The veteran River head coach said his team had to finish games and make sure it wasn’t in a position where a late turnover or penalty could come back to haunt it as it did multiple times in 2014.

The message evidently got across loud and clear because the Pilots left no doubt last Friday in their convincing 60-6 victory against Reedsville Eastern.

Senior quarterback Joey Flannery was extremely efficient, throwing for 191 yards. But it was junior Braden Whetsell, who stole the show.

The speedster made the most of his 10 carries, accumulating 133 yards and scoring four touchdowns.

Sophomore Lukas Isaly accounted for 131 yards, a touchdown and he threw a two-point conversion.

It’s definitely a good thing that River put up a new scoreboard at Martin Flannery Field because the Pilots have a chance to do a lot of scoring this season and those Christmas bulbs that Athletic Director Mark Romick said were being used to replace the former scoreboard’s lights can become costly in the long run.

SOLID DEBUTS

Some believe that the quarterback position is the most important of all of sports. Whether you buy that or not, I’m not sure, but it is the most important position in football.

Two area teams – Harrison Central and St. John Central – debuted new quarterbacks and both performed quite well.

Senior Brandon Mitchell completed 12-of-17 passes for 207 yards and two touchdowns. He utilized a bevy of weapons as five different players caught a pass.

Mitchell – for the most part – played like a calm, cool customer though he’d only made one prior start at quarterback.

Sophomore Javon Davis was also impressive in his debut, which resulted in a 26-14 victory at Clarksburg Notre Dame.

He completed 10-of-17 passes for 113 yards and two touchdowns.

While Davis comes from an impressive quarterback lineage, let’s not forget that he’s not his dad, Jose, or his uncle, Nate. Both of whom were all-Ohioans multiple times over again at Bellaire.

Davis is a talented kid who has been raised as quarterback, but he should be allowed to cast his own shadow without living in his dad and uncle’s.

STREAK ENDS

The Shadyside regular-season winning streak was abruptly snapped at 32 games last Friday at Magnolia.

The Tigers hadn’t lost a regular season game since October 7, 2011 when Wheeling Central handed the Tigers a 34-20 setback.

Coach Mark Holenka knew his team was probably going to experience some growing pains when you simply looked at their graduation losses. The Tigers were bit by an injury bug in the pre-season and throw in the fact that Magnolia is expected to be one of the premier teams in the Ohio Valley and the end result was a 40-0 setback.

Holenka and his staff are too good of coaches to let this season spiral out of control. Shadyside will compete with many teams, but the Tigers will also be underdogs in a lot of games, too.

This week’s trip to Woodsfield to face Monroe Central might be an even bigger game than normal on the schedule. The Tigers make their home debut against a really good Caldwell team in week 3 and trek to Meadowbrook in week 4.

All told, Shadyside’s schedule went 8-2 during the first week.

STATEMENT MADE

As is the case in 2015, there was some back-and-forth banter on social media between some Martins Ferry and Buckeye Local fans about the game.

The Purple Riders did their talking on the field with a 60-6 victory against the Panthers.

One senior, in particular, showed what he’s capable of doing. Arjay Burress – a multiple-time all-Ohioan – scored six touchdowns and ran for 190 of the Purple Riders’ 332 infantry yards.

Burress is capable of doing that most weeks. He’s been a talented player for now three seasons, but his head coach, Dave Bruney, simply raved about the offseason he put forth in preparing for his final go-around.

MR. DO IT ALL

St. Clairsville senior Brendan Ferns will probably be receiving a check from Carrollton’s athletic department sometime soon for selling tickets and serving as game security.

It certainly wouldn’t be a surprise if he did those things because he certainly did a little bit of everything on the field, so what’s a few more duties?

Ferns, who has narrowed his college choices to West Virginia and Penn State, played no fewer than seven different positions in the Red Devils’ hard-earned victory against the Warriors.

He played tailback, quarterback, wide receiver, middle linebacker, outside linebacker, safety and tight end.

He ran for 74 yards and two touchdowns and caught three passes for 101 yards. He orchestrated a touchdown drive during his lone series at quarterback. On the defensive side of the ball, he had 16 tackles.

You have to give Brett McLean and the Red Devils’ staff credit. When a team has a player like Ferns, it should find as many ways as possible to utilize him. That’s exactly what St. C. did on Friday.

DEFENDING THE BIG PLAY

As I covered two games this past weekend – Harrison Central at Claymont and Bellaire at Ridgewood – I noticed several big plays happening.

It seemed like every scoring play was a long one where either a blown coverage or a missed tackle led to a huge gain for the offense.

During Bellaire’s loss at Ridgewood, six of the nine touchdowns were 40 yards or longer. That’s just simply hard to fathom.

So, that peeked my curiosity a bit and I decided to go through the boxscores from games that were played in the area.

There were no fewer than 54 scoring plays that covered 30 yards or longer.

I can’t quite put my finger on what that stems from. Are the offenses that good and explosive? Are the defenses that bad? Is the coaching so good that they found the weakness in the opposition’s defense and exploited it?

It’s actually probably a combination of all of those and then some.

I’m going to continue to track this throughout the season. I think it’ll be highly interesting to see if the number goes up and down as the season wears on.

CHECKING IN ON THE LOCALS

LEVI NELSON, who is a St. Clairsville graduate, led Rittman to a 1-0 start for the second straight season. His Indians defeated Richmond Heights, 34-12. They’ll trek to South Central this week.

JOHN MAGISTRO, the former Bellaire High head coach, led Westerville Central to a thrilling 28-21 victory in overtime against Gahanna Lincoln. Next up with a home date with New Albany.

JERRY BUTI, the Bellaire High graduate, coached Defiance to a 20-14 victory over Napoleon last week. Next up is a meeting with Kenton this week.

FRED RAY, the Martins Ferry graduate, is already headed for week 3 of his season at Fairview High School in Kentucky. His squad is now 2-0 after a 44-20 victory against Hazard, Ky. They trek to Lawrence County this week.

MIKE ORLANDO, who is a Steubenville Central graduate, watched his Cincinnati McNicholas squad fall, 13-10, to Turpin. It hosts Cincinnati Anderson this week.

Staskey can be reached via email at sstaskey@timesleaderonline.com or at Twitter.com/TLSportsSeth