With an opening week victory under their belts, the Escambia Academy Cougars will travel to Grove Hill to take on the Clarke Prep Gators on the gridiron Friday night.

The No. 9-ranked Cougars (1-0, 0-0) open up region play with their game against the Gators, who they defeated in a 30-24 shootout on Oct. 9 last season.

Cougars head coach Heath Gibson said the focus of practice this week is ball control due to the five lost fumbles the Cougars suffered against the Sparta Warriors last Friday.

“This week in practice, we are working on a lot of ball handling drills,” Gibson said. “We had five turnovers the other night against Sparta, so we have issues that need to be fixed. Other than that, we will look at how we can utilize our speed to win the ballgame.”

Another problem the Cougars faced in their season opener was the performance of their offensive line. Gibson said that he thinks some changes in practice last week affected how his blockers handled their assignments.

“We are going to work on finishing everything we do this week,” Gibson said. “We went to quick whistles in practice last week, which I think hurt us, but this week we are going to slow those whistles down, and work on finishing our blocks.”

On the other side of the ball, the Cougars will work to make sure they are just as strong as they were against the Warriors in their first game.

The Gators bring a lot of size to the competition, which will test EA’s defense this week.

Gibson said the biggest issue with defense is making sure all of his players are healthy.

“We are just keeping them tuned up and keeping them healthy,” Gibson said. “Making sure everyone is ready to play and not sidelined with injury is the biggest thing on that side of the ball.”

As their game against the Gators approaches, the Cougars know what to expect when they take the field Friday night.

Gibson said Clarke Prep will bring a power running game, and added the Cougars will be ready to stop them with their defense.

“They’ll come out running a Wing-T,” Gibson said. “They are going to go foot-to-foot, and come right at us. Speed is not their strong point, so they will look to use their size and strength to move the ball. Defensively, we will keep eight men in the box, put some blitz packages together, and coach (Ricky) Ford will have the defense aware of what to be looking for.”

The Cougars and Gators kick off Friday at 7 p.m. in Grove Hill.