In the months since Vicksburg High and Warren Central went their separate ways into Class 4A and 5A, respectively, their rivalry has softened a bit. No longer is every game between them life and death, bigger than life.

A spirit of cooperation has even developed among some coaches. Case in point, powerlifting.

After years of competing for division, region and state championships, Vicksburg and Warren Central are working together this weekend to put on a meet. The first Vicksburg-Warren Invitational will feature eight teams and serve as a finish to an abbreviated regular season.

The meet will be held in Warren Central’s “B” gym and will use the school’s facilities and weights. Vicksburg High coach Jackie Williamson will provide a computerized scoring system and help run the meet. Each school has hosted its own meet in the past — VHS will host next year’s Invitational — but working together makes it easier on both teams, WC coach Chad McMullin said.

“It’s a lot easier. When I had them myself, you can’t coach. I’ve lost lifters at the district level because I’m over here taking care of something and our guy bombed out when I should’ve been over there. It’ll give us a chance to coach instead of worrying about procedures and things like that,” McMullin said. “When or if (Vicksburg) moves back to 5A we’ll still do it this way because it’s a heckuva lot easier.”

The stakes for this meet are relatively low. As a regular-season meet, McMullin and Williamson will use it to give some lifters practice and figure out which ones to use in the regional meets and beyond. The timing of it makes it a fairly important competition, though.

This is only one of two regular-season meets. The first was last weekend in Natchez. The regional meet, which begins the road to the state meet in April, is next on the schedule in early February. That makes today’s event the last chance for both coaches to evaluate their squads in an actual competition.

“We’re real young. We’ve got four seniors and a couple young guys that are going to do well come district,” McMullin said. “My problem is I’ve got five or six guys in the same weight class and you can only use two in district. This is going to be their last tryout.”

Williamson is also trying to figure out which young lifters to use on the next level. He lost several seniors from a team that finished fourth at the Class 5A state meet last year, and has several promising candidates. He’s using the two regular-season meets to narrow the field.

“It’s definitely a rebuilding year. We lost a lot of kids that were point-getters for us,” Williamson said.

Williamson has also given his team an extra push in practice that’s paying off. The Gators are having a green-and-white intersquad competition during their weekday workouts. The meet-like atmosphere has lifted their totals a bit, Williamson said.

“Our totals have bounced up pretty good,” he said. “We’ve had people going 25 pounds over their max.”