ABOVE: Fairmont quarterback Joe Long looks to throw during a South District, Central-Red Subdistrict football game at New Ulm High School on Sept. 27. Sentinel file photo.

FAIRMONT — After a tough loss to Marshall in Week 6, the 5-1 Fairmont Cardinals are headed to Worthington (1-5) for a South District, Central-Red Subdistrict football game Friday looking to get back on track.

The Cardinals have stayed healthy and plan on continuing with their run-driven offense heading into the last leg of the season.

“You know, Worthington has a special running back,” said Fairmont head football coach Mat Mahoney. “I’m sure they’re going to do everything in their power to get the ball in his hands. I want to say he’s a Division II football player, so they’ve got to be ready for that.”

During the 28-9 loss against Marshall, Cardinals quarterback Joe Long went 7 for 8 through the air for 63 yards before a hard hit sidelined him for the night, causing Hadan Toomer to take over under center. Toomer went 8 for 12 passing for 42 yards, while running back Elijah Johnson had 19 carries for 63 yards on the ground and snagged two catches for 43 yards and receiver Nolan Schultze caught five for 50 yards on the night.

The game plan hasn’t changed for the Cardinals’ offense, who plan to establish the run game early. Meanwhile, the defense is preparing for the multiple formations that are expected to be thrown at them by Worthington.

“The other thing that they do a good job is that [Worthington] will have different formations,” said Mahoney. “We have to kind of know who’s coming in and out of the game, so we have to really be eyeful on their personnel. If somebody’s coming in, then they’re probably going to

jump into this formation. If somebody’s going out, they’re probably going to go to this formation, so we have to be really observant of that.”

The Cardinals are addressing the issues they have seen in the prior games with turnovers and mistakes made on defense.

“They [Worthington] run a 4-3 defense, so it’s nothing that we haven’t seen,” said Mahoney. “They have a very good middle linebacker, number 22, but at the end of the day, we just have to continue to do what we do. We have to play mistake-free football. We cannot turn the football over. We just need to keep moving the chains.”

Despite being a little banged up, the Cardinals are looking healthy, and Long will be returning for this game after his early exit against Marshall. Mahoney stated that their main concern with injuries of that nature is player safety and a commitment to protecting their players and a refusal to put player’s health in jeopardy for a game.

Now heading into the final two games of the regular season, the Cardinals are still taking it game by game. Mahoney did acknowledge that securing a bye in the first round would be crucial, but they can’t allow a team to catch them off guard.

“This is kind of the fun time of the year where you have multiple games in a small window there,” said Mahoney. “So we just gotta take it one game at a time. We can’t look ahead because we just don’t want anybody to sneak up on us and get us. We also know that if we can continue to win and do some damage here, we can get that one or two seed for the playoffs, and that’s important to us because the one or the two gets a bye. So, that’s why we’re just taking it one game at a time and going from there.”

The Cardinals are at Worthington on Friday looking to move to 6-1 on the year.