By DAN BISER

The South Columbus Stallions and West Columbus Vikings will meet Friday night at 7:30 at South Columbus with both teams coming off losses last week.

Friday’s game will mark the 15th varsity football meeting between the two schools. West Columbus took wins in the first two games of the series – 1992 and 1993 – but South Columbus has not lost to the Vikings since.

Last week South Columbus’ strong 2-0 start was derailed in a near-disastrous 42-7 thumping at the hands of unbeaten East Bladen at Elizabehtown. Meanwhile, West Columbus suffered its third straight loss by a 47-14 score to Whiteville.

Last fall, South Columbus took a 47-27 victory over West Columbus en route to an 12-2 season record. Junior cornerback Donovan Watts came up with three key pass interceptions in last year’s game at Cerro Gordo.

In last week’s loss to South East Bladen, the Stallions suffered six turnovers. East Bladen returned a fumble for a touchdown, returned a punt for a touchdown and blocker a punt to set up another score.

“We just didn’t play well,” said veteran Stallion coach Joey Price, who needs just two wins to crack the 100-victory career mark in this his 10th season as Stallion head coach. “East Bladen has an outstanding football team and you can’t make mistakes if you expect to stay in the game with them.”

Price said that the Stallion have the assignment this week of controlling the play of standout Viking back Travis Leggett. Leggett had 250 yards of total offense in last week’s game at Whiteville. He scored both Viking touchdowns on runs of 57 and 75 yards in the third quarter.

“Leggett does a lot of things for them,” Price said. “He’s the real deal.”

West Columbus is still working to shore up its defense, which was rebuilt virtually from scratch when a strong group of seniors played their final games.

It will be the final non-conference game for West Columbus which is scheduled to open play in the Southeastern 1A-2A Conference on Sept. 29 with a home game against Fairmont.

South Columbus went with two quarterback - senior Michael Hewett and sophomore Josh Duncan - against East Bladen.

The Stallions are trying to fill the backfield gap left by junior fullback Justin Smith, who suffered a season-ending ankle injury against Loris.