WOODVILLE &045; The Jefferson County Tigers and the Wilkinson County Wildcats knew that a loss Friday night would drop one of these teams into a deep hole at 0-2 in Region 7-3A.

But the Tigers were also playing with a lot of emotion as they dedicated this game to Anthony &uot;Jody&uot; Chambliss, who was injured in the Amite County game a week earlier and then found out he had cancer.

Jefferson County mixed a good balance of running and passing and got a solid defensive effort to defeat the Wildcats 18-6 in this key game for both teams.

&uot;We wanted to establish ourselves in district,&uot; Tigers head coach Jeffrey Harness said. &uot;Anthony means a lot to the team. We’re going through some hard times right now.&uot;

Jefferson County (4-1, 1-1) jumped out to a quick 12-0 lead in the first quarter on a 5-yard touchdown run by Earnest Havard and a 40-yard pass from Chris Carradine to Kristopher Williams.

The Tigers increased its lead to 18-0 as Carradine hooked up with Williams on a 9-yard pass late in the third quarter.

Carradine had one of his best games of the season, going 7-for-12 for 79 yards and Williams caught four passes for 62 yards.

&uot;This is an important win for us in district. We had a good week of practice,&uot; Harness said. &uot;They came out with some momentum. We had a good balance of run and pass. We’ll have to iron out our mistakes. The defense did a good job.&uot;

Jefferson County’s defense forced four Wildcat turnovers &045; three fumble recoveries and one interception &045; and kept them scoreless until Alvin Fosselman scored on a 5-yard run with 1:33 to go in the game.

Franklin County 14,

North Pike 7

MEADVILLE &045; How in the world can a team that rushes for 224 yards, has 17 first downs and keeps the other team from running an offensive play until midway through the second quarter lose a football game?

Well, North Pike is still trying to figure that one out as the Jaguars were stunned by a Franklin County Bulldog team that had just 69 yards of total offense and only four first downs in a Region 7-3A contest Friday night.

One thing that hurt the Jaguars was special teams &045; or in this case the lack thereof.

After Jeremy Morris’s 2-yard scoring run and Lance Cutrer’s point-after gave North Pike (2-3, 1-1) a 7-0 with 4:07 to go in the first quarter, Franklin County’s George Gibson quieted the Jaguars and their fans from Summit by returning the ensuing kickoff 95 yards for a touchdown with 3:52 to go in the quarter.

Chris Blackwell’s extra point tied the score at 7-7 and gave the struggling Bulldogs (3-2, 1-0) a much-needed lift.

What turned out to be the game-winning touchdown by the Bulldogs was set up by an interception of a Damian Smith pass by Deandrea Cameron, who picked it off at midfield and returned it to the Jaguars’ 9-yard line.

A few plays later, quarterback Tommy Gibbs ran in from 1 yard out with 3:47 to go in the second quarter.

That was all the Bulldogs needed as their defense held the Jaguars scoreless for the last three quarters of the game.