Greensburg Salem is a newcomer to the Greater Allegheny Conference this season.

Knoch doesn't plan to provide a hospitable welcome on Friday night.

"This is the first conference game for us and there will be a lot of anxiety and anticipation on both sides,"Knights football coach Mike King said. "It's rough sledding in this league.

"This year, there seems to be even more parity. It seems like you never know what's going to happen during any given week. It's important for us to get off to a good start in league play. We're playing at home and this is a game we have to go out and win."

The Knights already have had there share of ups and downs, following up a 34-6 loss at Montour with a resounding 34-0 thrashing of Ringgold last week.

"We kept our mistakes to a minimum, didn't turn the ball over and capitalized on their mistakes,"King said. "Whether it's pro, college or high school football, that's how you win."

Greensburg Salem avoided an 0-2 start by rallying in the final seconds to defeat Mount Pleasant, 18-14, last week. The Golden Lions opened the year with a 6-0 loss to Hempfield.

Sophomore quarterback Steve Fagert, replacing injured starter Zack Ruffner, threw an 8-yard scoring pass to Ryan Mathias with 11 seconds left for the deciding points — and for the 642nd win in Greensburg -Salem history, second-most in the WPIAL.

Ruffner was injured earlier in the last-ditch drive, after completing passes of 32 and 18 yards to Alex Walton.

"Zack is OKfor this week,"said Golden Lions coach Casey Cavanaugh. "He was cramping up pretty severely and just got hit the wrong way."

Cavanaugh is in his second year as Greensburg Salem's head coach. The Golden Lions were 2-7 last year after winning the Keystone Conference in 2003 and 2004.

The team returns only four starters on offense and five on defense.

"We've got six or seven sophomores seeing significant playing time, and a lot of juniors are playing football for the first time,"Cavanaugh said.

Some of the returnees are skilled players, however, in receiver Mathias, fullback Glenn Moyer and tight end Joe Paouncic.

"They remind me a little bit of ourselves,"King said. "They use a lot of the same formations and run the same type of plays.

"What I like about our kids is they're starting to come on physically. We played punishing, physical football last week against Ringgold."

Cavanaugh agreed.

"I was very impressed with that performance,"he said. "They completely dominated them on both sides of the ball."

Knoch's running game features fullback Justin McGowan (24 carries-210 yards-2 TDs)and tailback Alex Whisler (29-197-3 TDs). Quarterback Zach Gross completed six of 10 passes for 76 yards last week after hitting on just three of 13 aerials at Montour.

Whisler ran for 127 yards and three touchdowns against Ringgold.

"Alex is healthy again and he showed it,"King said. "He had a great game. Justin McGowan was solid on both sides of the ball again. Seth Montgomery continues to play good football at guard and (tight end) Eric Farmer has done a great job blocking for us.

"These are no-nonsense players and they're not high-maintenance players. You don't have to check and see if they're OKafter a game or if they got the ball enough. They're not like that."

Ruffner has thrown for 151 yards for Greensburg Salem while Larry Jones leads the team's rushing attack with 127 yards.

<b>7:30 p.m. Friday </b>• <b>Streak:</b> Knoch has defeated the Golden Lions in their past two meetings, 49-7 in 2002 and 14-2 in 2003.• <b>Statistic:</b> Two weeks into the season, the Knights lead Butler County with 333.5 yards of offense per game and 156.5 yards allowed defensively per outing.• <b>Speaking:</b> "We match up better with Knoch in terms of size than our first two opponents, but they are a very physical football team. This is our first year in the Greater Allegheny Conference and it's the toughest Class AAA league in the WPIAL." — Casey Cavanaugh, Greensburg-Salem coach