With a mighty flourish, Warren Central marked off the last item on its season checklist Tuesday night. Before the Vikings broke the postgame huddle, they flipped the list over and added a few things.

Eric Chappell had two goals and an assist, Tre Wilson scored a goal and assisted on another and WC crushed Olive Branch 5-1 in the first round of the Class 6A playoffs at Viking Stadium.

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Saturday, 1 p.m. – Warren Central at Northwest Rankin

It is the Vikings’ first playoff victory since 2004 and sends them into a second-round game at Northwest Rankin on Saturday at 1 p.m. Northwest Rankin beat Starkville 4-0 in the first round on Tuesday.

“They wanted to push through to the second round because we hadn’t done it in so long. Before the season, we had a list of goals and that was the last one,” said Greg Head, who also won his first playoff game in five seasons as Warren Central’s coach. “On the field we set a new goal because we’ve accomplished all the others.”

The game was played in front of a festive crowd of more than 150 people. A group of coaches tailgated near the field, while a dozen students painted their chests blue, chanted and sang songs in the stands throughout the game.

“It’s the first time I’ve seen that at a soccer game. You normally only see that at a football game,” Chappell said.

Chappell and his teammates gave the fans plenty to cheer about. They outshot Olive Branch 12-3 and controlled the action from start to finish. WC (15-5) never trailed after the 17th minute of the first half, when Wilson fed a backward pass through traffic to Chappell, who finished a breakaway with a shot off the inside of the right post.

Wilson assisted on another goal eight minutes later, this one by Jacob Pettersson, to make it 2-0 at halftime.

Olive Branch (8-7-1) got back in it on a goal by Cody

Roberts 7 1/2 minutes into the second half. But Warren Central answered four minutes later, with Wilson taking a pass from Chappell and blasting it past keeper Matt Bernardini for a 3-1 lead.

Olive Branch never recovered. It had only one shot on goal the rest of the game, and gave up two more goals in the waning minutes to turn it into a rout. Matt Waddle scored off an assist from Robert Langeland in the 21st minute, and Chappell scored in the 38th minute. Chappell also had a goal erased by an offside call.

“After that third goal, everybody sunk down a notch,” Olive Branch coach Ricky Hamilton said. “It really knocked the wind out of us. And when you get the wind knocked out against a good team, it’s hard to get up again.”

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Contact Ernest Bowker at ebowker@vicksburgpost.com