The Florala Wildcats know that they will have tough task on Friday night when the open up the season with a road game against J.U. Blacksher.

“They are traditionally a tough team to play,” first year Florala head coach Scott Mason said. “They are an old team with a lot of seniors on their roster. They are a big Class 2A school and we are going to have our hands full.”

After winning their preseason game against Pleasant Home, Mason said his players are ready to hit the field for a real game.

“They are ready to get this season started,” Mason said. “They have been calling my phone all weekend. This community is excited also. They are just happy that we relevant in sports. We still aren’t where we need to be, but we are going to be competitive. On Friday nights, they feel like they have a chance to win.”

Mason said that this week, he just wants to see his team continue to improve.

“I just want to see us making strides,” Mason said. “We are taking baby steps right now. We are just trying to build a foundation. From watching us last Friday, we made some mistakes, but they are all fixable mistakes. It wasn’t from a lack of effort. We played hard from snap to whistle. The mistakes are things that we can fix in practice. I was very pleased, but we have to make another big step this week.”

Mason said that end of the game against Pleasant Home was better than the beginning.

“We reverted to old ways in the first quarter,” Mason said. “We expected bad things to happen and then bad this happened. Once we figured out we could move the ball against them we woke up and it was different game. We need to play like that the whole game.”

Florala and J.U. Blacksher play at 7 p.m., Friday.