With one more week to prepare for Jefferson County and the rigors of the eight-game Region 3AA football schedule, the SCHS Gamecocks of Greg Manior will travel to the banks of Battle Creek Friday night to face the Tattnall County Battle Creek Warriors in their final tune-up before the region opener at Kelly Memorial Stadium next week.
“Tattnall has a very quick and strong team,” Manior said. “Their quarterback can run the ball and he is deadly in open space. He can also throw to some good receivers. The defense runs to the ball well and they have some good linebackers and a good secondary.”
The Warriors are fresh from a 28-6 pasting of the Claxton Tigers in the Pecan Grove in Claxton, their third consecutive season-opening win over those Tigers. Slated to be a member of 3AA for the 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 schools years, the system appealed to be placed in 2AA, the region they had toiled in the previous two years. They won their appeal. 
As they are currently members of 2AA, by the end of this classification period the region will have been their home for six years.
Over the past two seasons, the Warriors of coach Jeff Kaiser, at TCHS since 2006, have posted back-to-back 7-4 seasons. Each season the team hit the road to begin the state playoffs and fell to Jefferson County 33-14 a year ago (the week after Jeffco defeated SCHS 35-0 and Brooks County in 2008 by a 41-13 margin. 
Before Kaiser’s arrival, the program had gone 10-30 the previous four seasons. According to SCHS coaches, the Warriors run a 3-5 like the Gamecocks, walking two of the middle backers up and bringing them sometimes. The middle backer No. 44 is big and pretty good.  
Offensively, Tattnall will line up in a spread offense, relying heavily on their quarterback athleticism.
A school that came into existence only in the early 1990s, TCHS and SCHS have met 12 previous times with the last in 2005 when the Roosters claimed a 35-14 road win. 
The Gamecocks own an 8-4 lead against the Warriors.