OBSERVER File Photo In this file photo Dunkirk quarterback Phil Messina looks to pass during a game last season. The Marauders play their first home game tonight against Maritime Charter at 7:30 p.m.

Coming off their tight 7-6 victory over Olean last week, the Dunkirk Marauders are just excited to come home.

“It’s definitely significant. Playing in front of our crowd is really special,” said Dunkirk coach Mike Sarratori.

Walking into Dunkirk for a 7:30 p.m. showdown tonight for the Marauders home opener is Maritime Charter, a new arrival to Class B-2, the Commodores enter with the same record as the home team: 1-0. The Marauders enter with the advantage of being on their own turf.

“Teams don’t like coming over, it’s a later start, we get big crowds, it’s a new team in our division. All of those things are definitely an advantage,” Sarratori said.

Maritime is going to pose a different kind of challenge to Dunkirk than the Olean Huskies, as the Commodores use a mix of speed and skill to challenge opposing defenses.

“They beat Cheektowaga last week, who have been in playoffs just about every year. They’re very fast, with some good size, though not huge, but they’ve got very good speed and they’re very athletic,” Sarratori said.

To come away victorious in the game, Sarratori knows they need to clean up some of the mistakes they made last week in their victory over Olean.

“I saw us be a very young team that made a ton of mistakes. We were very lucky to get out of there with all the mistakes. In trying to limit mistakes, we stayed basic in the second half. But that shows how our kids never gave up and stuck together,” Sarratori said.

Dunkirk is fielding seven sophomores, with most of them starters, and a few juniors as well, so the team will have a few adjustments to make to get a more stable building block for the rest of the season. That all starts at the top with quarterback Phil Messina, who had a good day passing last Friday, going 6/10 for 89 yards.

“He was very accurate. He stayed within what we wanted him to do. We didn’t take any big chances, but completed most of his passes especially when we needed to. Phil runs the offense and is very confident,” Sarratori said.

The Marauders will take on the Commodores a little banged up, losing a couple starters during last week’s game, meaning it’ll be next man up for the Marauders, given their lower number of bodies available this season, but Sarratori knows his team will be fine.

Given the injuries and skill level of their opponent, the Marauders are going to stick to what they do best: Sound defense and a ground and pound offense. Given how the Marauders ran the ball against Olean, using a three man rotation of Christ Ortiz, Earl Stewart, and Jamari Terry, controlling the clock will be their big key to the game.

“We have to keep the ball away from them. We do have a bit of a size advantage, which helps in our situation. Ortiz got hot toward the end of the third quarter last week, so we stuck with him, but we trust all of them,” Sarratori said.

Sarratori knows his best chance of winning is to avoid a shootout, and if they play defense similar to how they did last week, Dunkirk should be able to control the tempo of the game and will maybe get a similar result to what they did against Olean.