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The Pike Liberal Arts Patriots (3-1, 1-1) will hit the road this Friday, Sept. 20, for a Class 2A, Region 3 game against the Barbour County Jaguars (0-2, 0-1).

Pike Lib is coming off a tough 22-14 region loss to Luverne in a region matchup last week.

“We played hard and never gave up, just couldn’t overcome the turnovers and penalties,” PLAS Coach William Moguel said of the Luverne game. “The penalties and turnovers just caught up to us against a very good football team.”

Still, Moguel is proud of the way his team has played thus far in the 2024 season.

“We’ve lost one game so far and our kids are playing hard. It’s going great,” Moguel said. “They’re going into each game expecting to win and in the past we went into games knowing we were out-manned. So, that is a good change. Our guys are playing hard and are expecting to win ball games and that shows up in how we play.”

Barbour County has lost both contests this year, including last week’s 54-0 loss to Highland Home. So far this season, the Jaguars have been outscored 97-6 in two games. Pike has one of the top scoring defenses in the state, regardless of classification, giving up just seven points per game.

“They’re an athletic team,” Moguel said of Barbour County. “We have to go out and work on us this week. We’re coming off a loss and we really need to be better penalties wise. I think we also got a little wore down against a good football team that pounded on us and ran right at us. We have to regroup and get better from that this week.”

Pike Lib travels to Clayton to face Barbour County at 7 p.m. this Friday.