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FAYETTE — The MHSAA Region 7-3A championship will be on the line this Friday night when the Jefferson County High School Tigers take on the Wesson Attendance Center Cobras at H.S. Stone Stadium on the campus of Copiah­-Lincoln Community College.

Kickoff between Jefferson County (6-2, 3-0) and Wesson (7-1, 2-1) is slated for 7 p.m. The Tigers had a bye last week after a 20-8 home win over South Pike High School back on Friday, Oct. 18. The Cobras lost at South Pike 40-37 last Friday night.

Tigers head coach Roderick Holmes said if he teams wins, they will be the Region 7-3A champions for the third year in a row. But if Wesson wins by eight or more points, then the Cobras will be No. 1, Jefferson County will be No. 2, and South Pike will be No. 3.

If Wesson wins by seven points or less, then Jefferson County will be No. 1, the Cobras will be No. 2, and South Pike will be No. 3.

“All we have to do is win and we won’t have to worry about those other scenarios,” Holmes said. He added that having a week off between the South Pike and Wesson games helped his team out in more ways than one.

“It’s been a rough season. A tough season out of district play. In playing those opponents, we kind of got banged up. We got those guys back who we missed because of injuries,” Holmes said. “We practiced some (the week after the South Pike game). We just didn’t do any physical kind of stuff. We hit the weights and ran a little bit. Gave the players an opportunity to get an ice bath.”

Holmes said that this week the Tigers are working on their spacing both offensively and defensively because they are playing on a different field than they are used to playing on.

“Pretty much that this game will be played at Co-Lin. So the field will be different,” Holmes said.

As for what concerns him the most about the Cobras on each side of the ball, Holmes said, “Offensively, they do a lot of different things. They don’t do just one thing. Each week, they add a little more to their offense. We’ve got to play sound defense. Defensively, maybe their linebacking play is kind of good. They’ve got a couple of good defensive linemen.”

Jefferson County will have to contend with a Wesson team that runs a spread offense and a four-front on defense. Holmes said that the players who are filling in for those injured players will need to have a big game for the Tigers to defeat the Cobras this Friday night.

“Other than that, we’ve got to do what we do every week, which is shut them down with our defense and score enough points to win the game,” Holmes said.