Wilkinson County Christian Academy begins defense of its MAIS Class A-AA state championship when the Rams play host to Class AAA Ben’s Ford Christian School Friday night.

Kickoff between the Rams and the Eagles is set for 7 p.m. The Rams will look to avenge a 40-34 loss at Ben’s Ford. That was the first of back-to-back losses WCCA suffered during the 2015 regular season.

WCCA coach Christopher McGraw said, however, despite last season’s loss, his team isn’t aiming for revenge.

“I feel like this is just another game to me. The way the district (District 5-AA) is set up, the only game that matter to me are the last three weeks,” McGraw said.

McGraw added that the players are very excited and motivated to get out on the field to get the 2016 regular season under way.

“We’ve been running around in the rain. We had to run inside on Monday because of the lightning. (Tuesday), we stayed outside because there was no lightning,” McGraw said.

He said that the offense will be working to improve on last season’s championship effort.

For WCCA to be victorious Friday night, McGraw said that Caleb Poole, Steven Franks, Braden Passinger and Hutch Holden will have to step up. McGraw noted that Poole wasn’t the starting quarterback in last year’s game, and he ended up becoming The Democrat’s All-Metro Player of the Year for 2015.
“If we’re physical at the beginning, they won’t hold up for four quarters,” McGraw said.