Woodville — The Wilkinson County High School football team lost to Natchez High School to start the season last Friday. The loss marked the third season in a row the Wildcats started the season off with a loss to Natchez.

Wilkinson County is hoping that Friday’s game against Amite County marks the third season in a row the Wildcats have answered an opening week loss with a victory.

“It’s a very important (game),” Brown said. “I told the coaches all week that if we can pull off a win against Amite, then we have an open date, and then we go to South Pike. We feel like if we can win Friday and get heeled up and make adjustments and improvements (during the off week), and we can win against South Pike, we’re where we have to be.”

Brown said he did see some things he liked from his team in its 21-12 loss to Natchez.

“I like our aggressiveness, especially defensively,” he said.

He also said his young skill players are showing improvement since the jamboree.

Brown said Natchez threw a lot of things at his young linebackers and secondary that forced them to miss some reads, and they are focusing on correcting those issues this week.

“We’ve worked with the linebackers more this week, making sure they know where they are supposed to go. We’ve made some improvements from last week’s game, so hopefully that will carry over.”

He also said he saw that his offensive line needed work after last week’s loss, and that has been another focus this week.

“We’ve done a lot of line work,” he said. “We’ve worked on blocks, and holding the blocks longer, which was part of the problem last week.”

Brown said Amite County did not have any film of its 52-24 loss to Hazlehurst.

“We’re basically looking at film from last year,” he said. “They have the same coach and some of the same players, so I don’t think they will deviate too much from what they did last year.”

Wilkinson County beat Amite County 12-6 last season.

Brown said he does not believe Amite County, which is a 2A school, will be as strong as Natchez, a 6A school.

“We never know what to expect, regardless of what record they show,” he said. “It’s a rivalry game anyway, so we can’t look at (their results) too much.”

Wilkinson County will travel to Amite County at 7:30 p.m. Friday.