WOODVILLE — It would have been easy for the Wilkinson County football players to get down on themselves after a 42-20 loss to Franklin County Oct. 1.

Instead, the Wildcats chose to improve their game preparation, and it showed last Friday in a 26-18 win against Jefferson County.

“That says a lot about my players,” Wildcats head coach Elbert Lyles said.

“They could have easily played with less enthusiasm and effort, but they came out with a good week of practice and performed.”

Now, Wilkinson County (5-2, 1-1) will face another big road test when it travels to Hazlehurst Friday.

“They’re a great team. They do a lot of things right, and they chase the ball really well,” Lyles said.

“They have speed just like they have in the past, and they have pretty decent size. They handled Franklin County pretty well, so that says a lot about them.”

Hazlehurst runs a Wing T offense, and Lyles said there are several things teams typically need to slow that type of offense down.

“In the past, versus the Wing T, you first of all have to have some good athletes, and they have to be good at reading defenses,” Lyles said.

“They have to read their different keys and carry out their assignments. You also have to have a good penetrating defense that takes gaps and disrupts things. There are a number of things we can do to try and slow them down, so hopefully we can contain them a little bit.”

Lyles said his team learned an important lesson in the loss to Franklin County, and he hopes to build off of last week’s win.

“They learned that you have to come out every game ready to play. You can’t get there and get ready to play, you have to get ready during the whole week,” he said.

“We realized that we weren’t mentally ready the whole week, and we tried to get ready during the game, and it doesn’t work that way.

“Hopefully we can build off of last week’s win and put together a good performance over in Hazlehurst, because we’re going to need it.”

And a win Friday would give the Wildcats a lot of momentum heading into their final two games of the season versus Amite County and Tylertown.

“We feel like if we can get a victory at Hazlehurst, it would carry us the distance. They’re one of the top teams (in our district) and always have been,” Lyles said.

“It would give us momentum to carry the rest of the season.”

Kickoff at Hazlehurst is at 7 p.m.