The Tooele and Stansbury High football teams have experienced a lot of unhappy Friday nights this season with a combined win-loss record of 2-14.

The Buffaloes have not tasted victory since Sept. 4 when they beat up on Ben Lomond. The taste of victory has been absent even longer for the Stallions who haven’t celebrated a triumph since the opening game back on Aug. 21 against Maple Mountain.

On Friday, however, one of the two Tooele Valley 4A teams will be all smiles while the other one will continue to feel that old familiar pain.

“It’s a big game. It’s the first time the two schools have ever played and it will be a fun rivalry game,” said THS coach Ray Groth. “And if you look at the records it should also be an evenly matched game.”

Both teams are trying to regroup after they have been hit with illnesses the past two weeks and also are trying to recover from a season’s worth of injuries.

“Everybody wants to win their last game and it’s a rivalry game so we won’t have to worry about getting the players up for the game. Both teams will play as hard as they have all season,” said Stansbury High coach Clint Christiansen. “It should be fun.”

Tooele High School was hit so hard by swine flu last week that it canceled last Friday’s game with East.

“Now, we’ve been hit by swine flu this week and we’re down three starters” Christiansen said.

Injuries have taken a toll on both teams this season and neither has a lot of depth.

“Ever since the Highland game we’ve been missing kids because of injuries. This region is extremely tough on a team from a physical aspect. It’s like going up against Timpview each week,” Christiansen said.

Groth agrees that Region 6 football is stronger than the Utah County region the Buffaloes competed against last year.

“Down there you have Timpview, but from top to bottom this league is stronger,” Groth said.

The Tooele coach feels there are athletes at THS who could help the football team. “Coach (Ray) Brazier and I believe there are half a dozen kids in the school that could really help us,” he said.

Other Region 6 games are being played on Thursday, but the Groth and Christiansen opted for a Friday game.

“I never did like Thursday games because you don’t have an extra day to prepare,” Groth said. “Especially this year another day helps us because of all the sickness we had. A second reason to play on Friday is because it gives fans and students a better opportunity of seeing the first game between the schools.”

The Tooele coach said that Stansbury does a good job defensively. “They can bring a lot of heat with their blitzes and offensive they run a deceptive option attack. We definitely will need to play hard and eliminate turnovers.”

Grantsville will be looking for its first region win and a trip to the state playoffs when it hosts Ben Lomond on Friday.

Coach Tony Cloward said making the playoffs would be a great thing for his young team. He said making the playoffs last year was a big plus for the program.

Ben Lomond has lost seven straight games after winning its first game against Union in overtime.

Mark Watson: mwatson@tooeletranscript.com