MARTINS FERRY — The Union Local Jets are flying high after last week’s 19-6 victory over Buckeye Local, ending a 16-game losing streak.

Coach Bernie Thompson and company will take that momentum into this Friday night’s matchup against Martins Ferry at the Dave Bruney Football Complex inside Purple Riders Stadium at 7 p.m.

“It made a lot of losses worth it for last week. Just to see their reactions and their excitement,” Thompson said. “I’m so happy for them. They needed it just for the confidence reason and it shows that all their hard work and everything that we’ve been preaching to them is paying off.

“It made it so much better just seeing how much joy it brought them, it makes you realize that what you’re doing is impactful.”

The Riders are coming off a 31-16 setback at the hands of Linsly in a contest that saw Ferry turn the ball over five times. Two of those turnovers went the other way for touchdowns, which proved to be the difference in the game.

“The turnovers really hurt us and essentially gave them two touchdowns,” Martins Ferry coach Chas Yoder said. “But, you can’t hurt yourself against good teams. It’s not an excuse. They flat out beat us.”

Despite the loss, Ferry’s Evan Carpenter and Chase Goff each ran for over 100 yards.

Carpenter amassed 116 yards and a touchdown, while Goff raced for 109.

“It’s nice to get back to that,” Yoder said of the success in the running game. “We haven’t had that since I’ve been back to Ferry. We have four guys and they are all going to get opportunities.

“We just have to put a whole game together. We haven’t done that yet. Once we do that, I think we’ll be OK no matter who we play.”

Jack Weir completed 3 of 17 his passes for 41 yards and three interceptions and Goff was 0-for-1.

“You’re going to get the same type of gameplan from Ferry that you do every year,” Thompson said. “They are physical, tough kids and from a physical standpoint it’s going to be a battle every time you play Martins Ferry.

“Evan Carpenter is a great athlete both offensively and defensively. He can be extremely disruptive at linebacker and they move him around to various places and on offense he does a great job of running the ball so we’ll have to gang tackle him.

“They have two quarterbacks there, too. I know they run both of those guys so we’ll have to be aware of them.”

The Jets, meanwhile, used a three touchdown, 93-yard performance from Jaksan Price, who carried the ball 32 times in the victory.

Quarterback Carter Blake was good on 10 of 16 passes for 157 yards,

“Those two are great players for us,” Thompson said. “That’s what we try to do is stay balanced and I thought Friday night was one of the most efficient gameplans that we’ve had.

“Jaksan did a great job of getting the hard earned yards.

“We called Carter’s name a few times to take a shot and he did. Those are young kids who are big pieces of this puzzle and we ask a lot of them. They seem to respond better and better each week and we’re very pleased with both of their efforts.”

Along with Price and Blake, Carter Loase had a strong game with two receptions for 79 yards and speedster Caleb McWhorter racked up 42 yards on four receptions.

“The old saying ‘winning is contagious’, well this energy is contagious,” Thompson said. “We definitely saw it Monday and Tuesday in practice. Kids are walking around a little more upbeat and confident and I’m excited to see how it translates to this week. We have a big week ahead of us. We’re underdogs this week but after the first two days of practice, we’re excited about how everything is going.”

The U.L. defense held the Panthers to 178 total yards in last week’s win but the Riders are excited for the challenge and concentrating on improving their own game.

“We just focus on eliminating our mistakes,” Yoder said. “We watch film and we pick some things up here and there but we really just try to correct ourselves.

“Union Local has a good coach and they had a young team last year. Now, they are still young but with experience, so I look for big improvements in them this year.”