Along Warren Central’s sideline Friday night, players struck up their usual chants of “Offense!” and “Defense!” when those respective units were on the field. Those cries were soon joined by a new mantra: “Get the ball!”

Every time WC’s defense stacked up a Northwest Rankin ball carrier on Friday, the chant erupted. Quite often, the players on the field granted their teammates’ wish. WC forced five turnovers, as well as two other fumbles it wasn’t able to recover. In five games this season, the Vikings have 15 takeaways, just five fewer than they had all of last season.

“That’s something our defense has been doing on a consistent basis,” WC coach Josh Morgan said. “We’ve gotten fumbles and fumble recoveries since the first game. It’s something we’ve been emphasizing, and we’ve been trying to execute.”

Although Warren Central had three interceptions against Northwest Rankin — two of them by Deandre Smith — 12 of its takeaways have come via fumbles. Defensive back Louis Carson has four of those recoveries, including one Friday night where he stripped Northwest’s Kurterrius Taylor and ran 85 yards for a touchdown.

Carson also had an interception against Northwest Rankin as the Vikings forced turnovers on five of the Cougars’ first 10 possessions.

“Coaches have been telling me to strip the ball,” Carson said. “It’s just making big plays. The defense did a good job. We need to do better on offense.”

If there is one downside to WC’s turnover fever, it has been the inability of the offense to take advantage of it. The Vikings have scored only two offensive touchdowns in their last two games, both losses. One of those, ironically, came when Carson fumbled after making a catch at the Northwest Rankin 10-yard line and teammate Malcolm Grant scooped it up and ran it in for the score.

Besides Carson’s touchdown return, WC’s takeaways gave it the ball in Northwest territory four times. One resulted in Grant’s touchdown, and the other three possessions netted no first downs. One ended with a fumble on the first play of the drive.

The lack of offensive output was a big reason the Vikings lost, 24-13.

“We knew they (Northwest) were good up front. We could not muster up any offense,” Morgan said. “We had plenty of chances and couldn’t move the chains. Against a good team, you’re not going to get a lot of chances and we missed ours.”

Now the Vikings (1-4, 0-1 Region 2-6A) need to regroup for a must-win game at Greenville-Weston (3-2, 1-0) this Friday. A loss would drop them to 0-2 in the region with undefeated Madison Central coming to Viking Stadium next week, and eliminate any margin for error in the chase for a playoff berth.