Woodville — If Wilkinson County Christian Academy thought it had a tough opponent for homecoming in CENLA Christian Academy last week, look who awaits the Rams on Senior Night – the red-hot Centreville Academy Tigers.

Defending Class AA state champion Centreville, ranked No. 4 in Class AA and coming off a big win over District 5-AA rival Oak Forest, will travel 15 miles west to take on the struggling Rams Friday with kickoff set for 7 p.m.

Rams seniors George Davis, Justin Davis, Christopher Houghton, Spenser Smith, Bill Trevillion and Garrett Wilkerson will be honored before the game.

WCCA goes into this game with a 3-6 overall and finished District 6-A play with a 2-6 record after a 28-19 loss to the Lions. Centreville not only gave head coach Bill Hurst his 300th win with the 35-14 win over the Yellow Jackets, but the Tigers also clinched a spot in the Class AA playoffs with a 4-1 record in District 5-AA and will start defense of their state championship two weeks from Friday.

“We’re going to do our best to shut down their running game. That’s the backbone of their offense,” Rams head coach Sam Byrd said. “They have an excellent offensive line and their backs run to daylight well. We’ll have to make tackles.”

But first things first, Centreville (7-2 overall) must not afford a letdown after an emotionally-charged game last Friday night. And Hurst doesn’t expect one at all from his team.

“I expect them to play as they’re supposed to. WCCA is always a good game and I expect it to be one this week,” Hurst said.

One of the things Hurst said his team will be working on in practice this week is conditioning. Another point of emphasis will be some things on offense and defense that he and his coaching staff figured would be better at this point in the season.

“Staying in shape. Trying to tune our offense and defense up. Our defense is giving up too many points,” he said. “All eleven of them need to be getting better than where they are now. They’ve just got to work harder. Work on our offensive line blocking and backs hitting the whole.”

Even though Hurst said his team has been giving up a lot of points, the Tigers have allowed a total of just 34 points during their five-game winning streak — an average of just 6.8 points a game. The offense has scored at least 34 points during that stretch.

The game will also feature two of the area’s top running backs in WCCA’s Tip McKenzie and Centreville’s Zack Sinclair.

In the loss to CENLA Christian, McKenzie had 21 carries for 115 yards and three touchdowns as the Rams tried to rally from a 28-0 deficit.

“The offensive line is going to have to do a good job maintaining their blocks and giving our backs some room to run,” Byrd said.

As for what Centreville’s defense will need to do to contain McKenzie, Hurst said, “Try to get some penetration up front.”

Quarterback Todd Gonda will have to have a big game if the Rams are to pull off the upset. Last week he threw for 87 yards and one interception on 7-of-16 passing against the Lions. Hurst said the defense will try to contain him, but that may be easier said than done.

The Rams will also have to do a better job of taking care of the football. In a turnover-plagued game against CENLA Christian, they put the ball on the ground five times and lost three of them. Even though the Lions won that game, they lost five fumbles and threw one interception.

“We’re going to have to cut down on our turnovers,” Byrd said. “We’ve been able to put up the points the last few weeks, but we haven’t been able to make enough stops. Eliminate the mental errors and play our type of game.”

WCCA will have its hands full trying to slow down Sinclair, who ran through Oak Forest’s defense last week to the tune of 149 yards and three touchdowns on 17 carries, as well as quarterback Kyle Brown, who threw for 69 yards and one touchdown on just 2-of-4 passing against the Yellow Jackets.

As Hurst put it, he expects a solid performance from Sinclair “every Friday night.”

“Sinclair does a good job running the ball. Adam Perry runs the ball well. Kyle Brown does a good job running the offense and completing some passes. Beau Field runs the ball well for them,” Byrd said.

Byrd added that his team will have to be healthy enough to slow down Centreville’s power running game.

“We’ve had some injuries the last few weeks. Winning the battle at line of scrimmage is where the game is won,” he said.