ferriday — Before the season started, the Ferriday High School football team broke its season down into three parts: pre-district, district and playoffs. Although the Trojans struggled to a 2-3 record in their pre-district schedule, they started district play with a 26-6 win over Jonesboro-Hodge last week.

“It’s always good to start out with a win in district,” head coach Richard Oliver said. “Before that we lost the last two weeks, so it’s good to get a win under our belt. The goal is to do well in the first two (phases of our season), so we can play in the third season. We are in the second season right now, and we are doing the best we can to win all our games.”

This week the Trojans (3-3, 1-0) look to stay perfect in District 2-2A play when they travel to face Homer High School.

“A win would be huge,” Oliver said. “It lines up with our goal and gameplan which was to win a district championship. Every high school starts out with that goal, to win a district championship and get in the playoffs to see how far you can go. If we win these (first) two it puts us on a path to step up higher to reaching our goal.”

Oliver said Homer brings a big, athletic team into the game Friday, and they will show Ferriday a bunch of different looks on both sides of the ball. He said it is important the Trojans focus on what they like to do this week, and not get caught up in the different things Homer will throw at them.

The Trojans and the Pelicans will kick off at 7 p.m. Friday.

Marksville at Vidalia

Vidalia High School’s troubles continued last week in a 58-20 loss to Jena.

It was the Vikings’ first loss in District 3-3A, and it dropped them to 0-6 on the season. But, head coach Gary Parnham said his team is still fighting and working to improve.

“We are getting out and working hard,” he said. “We are not going to quit. We want to keep getting after it and work hard to prepare to be better football players.”

After scoring just 26 points in its first five games, the Vikings’ offense put up 20 in last week’s loss.

“The offense improved last week, and we can build on that this week,” he said. “It gives us hope to build on for the future.”

Parnham said it was Vidalia’s passing attack that showed progress.

“The offensive line blocked good,” he said. “We got good pass protection, and our quarterback found receivers.”

This week Vidalia will host Marksville High School.

“They are good, real good,” Parnham said. “They run an unconventional offense and have three good backs who are real shifty and real fast.”

Parnham said the key for his team is just to focus on becoming better football players in practice.

“We just want to play as hard and tough as we can play and let the chips fall where they may,” he said.

Vidalia (0-6, 0-1) and Marksville (3-3, 1-0) will kick off at 7 p.m. Friday.

Block at LaSalle

The Block High School football team is looking forward to finally playing a team in its own classification when it opens up District 4-1A play Friday, head coach Bennie Vault said.

The Bears (2-4, 0-0) have lost three games in a row to 3A schools, and have yet to play a 1A school this season.

Vault said he hopes the tough schedule will prepare his team for the upper echelon teams in 1A.

“Hopefully the last few contests got us ready, and we can perform above a 1A level,” he said. “The 3A teams came out with a lot of intensity and play with high intensity throughout the game. Most of those teams compare with some of the upper-level 1A schools, so we got playoff-type intensity.”

Vault also said he used the pre-district to try players at different positions, and he was glad they came out of it with no injury issues.

The Bears will travel to play LaSalle High School Friday. Vault said the Tigers would bring an offense that likes to throw the ball around.

“They like to spread it and throw it,” he said. “That’s what we’ve been seeing against Rayville and Donaldsonville, who like to do the same thing. We’ve been working on it for a whole year.”

With three-straight losses, Vault said it would be big for his team to get back to the winner’s circle this week.

“It would be real big to get back to our winning ways,” he said. “We are in uncharted territory, because we haven’t had a losing record since my first year. The toughest thing for me is keeping them motivated and getting them ready each week. But, they are still good-spirited this week, and I think we will have a good week.”

Block (2-4, 0-0) will face LaSalle (2-4, 0-1) at 7 p.m. Friday.