Bellefonte (2-2) at Tyrone (2-2)

Time: 7 p.m.

Coaches: B— Duffy Besch, third season;T— Steve Guthoff, first season

Last meeting: Tyrone 51, Bellefonte 0, last season

Key players: B— Phil Fenstermacker, QB; Nunu Buey, RB; Doylan Deitrich, S ; T— Aleic Hunter , RB

The skinny: A week ago, the Red Raiders were hanging right with Class AAAA Central Mountain, trailing just 17-14 at the half. But then the Wildcats’ Von Walker ran wild, finishing with 362 yards rushing in what turned into a 50-14 romp. Bellefonte coach Duffy Besch said there are lessons to be learned from both halves.

“You have to take it as a learning experience,” he said. “When you’re playing against a player of that caliber, you have to take a lot of things and learn from them. ... In the first half it was, ‘Look at what you can do if you’re playing together and playing strong.’

“I think we can take some positives out of there, but we also have some things we have to work on. We have to finish our plays and tackle better.”

The schedule doesn’t get any easy for the Red Raiders, who face another stout rushing attack.

After starting the season 0-2, the Golden Eagles have racked up 131 points and 752 yards rushing in crushing Huntingdon and Philispburg-Osceola the past two weeks. Tailback James Oliver has rushed for 435 yards and eight scores, including five TD runs of 31 yards or longer.

“I think it’s the same challenge that we’ve been facing — Tyrone likes to run the ball and bring the ball at you and they’re not going to back down from you,” Besch said. “They’ve proven that over the past couple of weeks. It will be a good test for us from the standpoint to see how we can bounce back and move forward.”

Even though Steve Guthoff is in his first season as a head coach at Tyrone, he served several seasons as former coach John Franco’s defensive coordinator. Besch says the Golden Eagles haven’t changed many of their schemes.

“Coach Guthoff is a smart coach,” Besch said. “He’s worked a lot under Coach Franco. To his credit, he has players who have been in that system and have that skill set and he’s taking advantage of it.”

Jordan Fye, who rotated with Phil Fenstermacker, completed 8 of 14 passes for 128 yards, including a touchdown toss to Nick Leiter for the Red Raiders. “I really believe we’re starting to make some strides again,” Besch said. “With some good luck, we can be in the hunt.”