Monarchs Want To Keep Momentum, Big Reds Want To Regain Footing Friday
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BELLAIRE -- John Marshall High School and Bellaire High School are right across the river from one another, scantly 10 miles apart as the crow flies. But despite their proximity, the Monarchs and Big Reds are coming into their matchup Friday from very different places.
John Marshall is rolling, sitting at 2-0 after a gutsy win over Marietta and a 42-7 pounding of Weir last week. Bellaire, meanwhile, got their season off to a good start with a dominant showing against Buckeye Local, but have dropped back-to-back games against Monroe Central and Barnesville coming into Friday.
"2-0, that’s where you want to be," John Marshall head coach Mark Cisar said. "We’re off to a great start. Had an absolute battle the first game with Marietta. Then, we played very well against Weirton. We’re right where we wanted to be, 2-0. That was the goal going into this week. And, we want to be 1-0 this week. We can’t look forward to next week, but we've put ourselves in a good situation."
"We haven’t been able to get our 'big play' guys in motion the last few weeks," Bellaire head coach Mark Bonar said. "We’ve had some good plays and just haven’t finished some drives. We think this week of practice, we’ve done a lot better. We’re doing much better this week. We’re working on finishing drives and we think that that’ll bode well for us."
One of Bellaire's 'big play' guys, Raekwon Pettigrew, already has four touchdowns this season-- one receiving, two punt return touchdowns, and one pick-six-- but limiting his impact has been priority No. 1 for opponents this year, and the senior weapon was limited to just two touches last week against Barnesville.
He'll surely be receiving plenty of attention from the Monarchs.
"It starts with him," Cisar said of Pettigrew. "I mean, their offense-- they have a quarterback, Dippel throws it pretty well. They got a couple of decent running backs in the backfield. But obviously, Pettigrew, he’s the guy. He’s explosive. He can score at any time when he touches the ball. We have to do a good job on him. We have to do better than we did last year."
During the two teams' matchup in 2025, Pettigrew caught 11 passes for 277 yards and three touchdowns.
"He just absolutely, single-handedly kept them in the game against us," Cisar said. "We know we have to do a better job with that. And if we do, we’ll put ourselves in a good situation. He’s an explosive athlete that feeds off confidence. So far, teams have sold-out to keep him in check this year, and we hope we can do it."
John Marshall is getting their quarterback, Jacob Cisar, back for this game after he missed the Monarchs' outing against Weir. Against Marietta, Cisar completed 14 of 17 passes for 264 yards and three touchdowns. But, Mark Cisar said that senior runningback Dalton Cooper, a big-play threat in his own right, is "banged up a little bit from this past week."
Bonar says the Monarchs have explosive ability.
"They are a big-play team," Bonar said. "They've gotten some really big plays."
"We have all respect for them. We have respect for John Marshall’s team. It’s a good game right now for us. We think we’ll be ready. We know they’ll be ready. So it ought to be a lot of fun."
Bellaire and John Marshall have played 39 times since the two schools' first meeting in 1968, with Bellaire holding the all-time lead 28-11, though since 2014 John Marshall holds a 4-3 edge. Before that, Bellaire and Moundsville High School played 45 times between 1907 and 1967.
"This game was packed last year, and I’m sure there’ll be a nice crowd again this year," Cisar said. "You know, it’s close. Is it necessarily a rivalry? I wouldn't say it’s really a rivalry, but when you’re this close-- our kids know their kids. They follow each other on Twitter and whatever else. Should be well-attended. It’s a Friday night. Weather looks like it’s going to be good. So yes, this is one of those games that everybody in the Valley is watching to see what happens and who prevails. We’re excited, it’s going to be a great atmosphere."
"It doesn’t seem like there’s the rivalry that there used to be," Bonar said. "When I coached there before and it used to be the John Marshall-Bellaire game, I feel like the kids knew each other more. It just doesn’t seem like it’s the same as it used to be. It’s still a nice game and it’s great competition, but I’m not sure the kids know each other like they used to."
Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. at Nelson Field on Friday.