Westwood’s Garrett Mann, right, pursues Negaunee runner Drew DuShane, center, toward the sideline as the Patriots’ Erik Anderson, left, also gives chase during their high school football game played Oct. 18, 2018, in Negaunee. (Photo courtesy Daryl T. Jarvinen)

ISHPEMING — A week off, even if you don’t go anywhere, sounds like a vacation, make that “staycation,” that none of us would like to miss.

It seems to be a bit more of a mixed bag for the Westwood High School football team.

The Patriots earned last week off as one of the top two teams in their district of the MHSAA Division 6 playoffs, but it also meant that a fairly young team hasn’t played a game in nearly three weeks when they downed Gogebic 42-8 on Oct. 16.

Though it gets to stay at home, Westwood gets thrown in the playoff fire with a game against nearby rival Negaunee at 7 p.m. Friday.

“We haven’t played in three weeks,” WHS head coach Scott Syrjala said. “Not getting the game reps, that’s something that would concern any coach.”

Despite being forced into taking about two weeks off due to coronavirus concerns in the Negaunee Public Schools, the Miners got to play last Friday at Gladstone.

“We’ve haven’t been tested like they are,” Syrjala said of Negaunee’s playoff game last week.

He added this his team has only seen live action three times this fall despite compiling a 5-1 record as two wins and one loss were due to forfeits.

“We’re a run-oriented team,” Syrjala said. “We’ve rushed for over 400 yards in two of our three games, and we’ve only passed the ball about nine or 10 times total this season.”

His junior-laden team included a number of starters from 2019, but the coach has one caveat.

“They’re still juniors,” he said about their experience.

They include his dual quarterback-running back threat of Zach Carlson and Garrett Mann.

“But Negaunee can stop the run, so it should be interesting to see what we need to do on offense,” the coach said. “We know what we’re getting with Negaunee. They’re big and they’re fast where they need to be.”

Carlson, Mann and Gavin Dawson are also three players who made West PAC all-league on defense as the Patriots yielded just 23 points in the three games they played.

“I expect this to be a knockdown, drag-out game,” Syrjala said of Friday’s battle. “We’ll have to control the line of scrimmage if we expect to have any success against them. Man, they’re big and have a really good defense. So it’s going to really be a battle.”

These teams were supposed to meet two weeks ago to finish the regular season on Thursday, Oct. 22, but that was during the time that Negaunee had its self-imposed shutdown.

“We found out like that Sunday night (before the game),” Syrjala said. “So we had just watched a little bit of film on them.

“Even though we had the bye last week, it didn’t help a lot with preparation because we didn’t know if we were going to face Negaunee or Gladstone.

“But we are pretty healthy, and we’re happy just to be playing on Friday. The kids are happy and safe and we have this opportunity to play.

“We’ll just let the chips fall where they may.”

Friday’s winner advances to the Division 6 district championship game against the winner of Friday’s other game in the district — Calumet at Menominee. While Negaunee will go on the road regardless of who wins that game, Westwood gets to stay home again if Calumet wins. Those factors are determined by playoff points.

Steve Brownlee can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 252. His email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.