woodville — Wilkinson County Christian Academy cruised passed Claiborne Academy last week 47-7 for its third MAIS Class A-South Central victory of the season.

“We played well on both sides of the ball,” head coach Ray McDaniel said. “It was probably our best game of the year.”

This week the Rams will step out of district play for the final time this season to face Heidelberg Academy in Woodville for homecoming.

WCCA is off to its best start in years, and McDaniel said it would be nice to get a win for the current and former Rams Friday.

“The kids have a lot of confidence,” he said. “The program has been down the past few years, and it’s nice to put some wins together.

“We would like to come away with a win (this week). It’s homecoming, and it would be good for the alumni, but Heidelberg is going to be a challenge.”

McDaniel said Heidelberg Academy uses a run-oriented offense, much like the Rams.

“We have just been focusing on what we do (this week),” he said. “We’ve watched film on them, and we’re going to see what they do, so we can game plan according to what we do.”

McDaniel said Friday’s game will be important, because it could help spring board WCCA into its final four district games. But for now he said the Rams are just enjoying winning games.

“(Winning) is good for the kids, because they worked hard starting last spring, and it’s good to see their hard work rewarded,” he said. “It’s really good for the whole community. People are excited about it. It’s been a while since we had something to cheer for on Friday nights.”

WCCA (5-1, 3-0) will host Heidelberg (3-2) at 7 p.m.

Jefferson County

FAYETTE — After beating Trinity Episcopal in the first game of the season, Jefferson County High School has been on a five-game slump.

But Jefferson County (1-5) still has plenty of opportunities to turn its season around. Region 7-3A play starts this week for the Tigers when they travel to play Crystal Springs.

“We started with three goals at the beginning of the season,” Tigers’ head coach James Herrington said. “They were to win Region 7, win south state and win a state championship. Even with all of our losses, our goals are still within reach, and we still hold our destiny in our hands.”

Three of Jefferson County’s losses have been in games decided by eight points or less, and Herrington said his team’s preparation makes the difference in those close games.

“Making mistakes along with playing quality ball clubs equal losses,” he said. “We have to make sure we get guys to understand that we need to go out every week and practice hard. You don’t win on Friday, you win on Monday through Thursday, and I don’t think we’ve beat teams during the week early in the season.”

Crystal Springs will bring an offense that likes to throw the ball into Friday’s game, and Herrington said his team will have to be ready to defend the pass.

“We have to contain their quarterback,” he said. “They are a pretty pass heavy team. They like to throw the football around a little bit. But our defense should be accustomed to that because we do that as well.”

Herrington said the key to the game would be his teams’ ability to dominate the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball.

“If we win that, we win the game,” he said.

Despite the Tigers’ slow start, Herrington said this team could still make its mark this season.

“We just have to focus on making the guys understand that (those losses) were the first half of the season. All those were non-conference games, and we are about to start our conference run. This is the half of the season that will count. All the games we’ve played mean nothing if we can go out and finish strong in October.”

The Tigers will go to Crystal Springs (3-2, 0-0), and kickoff is set for 7:30 p.m. Friday.