Warren Central did not waste any time getting started on the 2012 season.

The Vikings hit the field at 6 this morning for their first practice of the season. Today is the first day teams in the Mississippi High Schools Activities Association and Mississippi Association of Independent Schools are allowed to practice.

Vicksburg High and Porters Chapel also conducted morning workouts, and planned to return to the field later today. St. Aloysius will have one practice late this afternoon.

Third-year Warren Central coach Josh Morgan said his 70 players are eager to erase the memories of last year’s 1-10 season.

“Six a.m. has been our time all summer,” Morgan said. “We want to get a good start and use this week for conditioning and teaching. We have work to do scheme-wise.”

Senior wide receiver Kourey Davis said the early start was fine by him.

“It’s all right,” Davis said. “This shows we are hard at work trying to win. We want to win the division championship.”

Vicksburg High opened preseason drills with a new coach for the first time in 12 years. Tavares Johnson, who was hired from Cleveland East Side to replace the retired Alonzo Stevens, got started with his new team at 8 a.m.

It was more a continuation than a fresh start, though. Johnson said the Gators have had a busy summer since completing spring drills in mid-May.

“We’ve done a lot of work over the last 60 days,” Johnson said. “We got our weightlifting program going and we had our 7-on-7 stuff on Friday nights. We’ve gained some players since the spring with a couple of transfers from California and Florida and we also got two more players from the basketball team, Edward Davis and DeAndre King, to join us.”

The Gators will have two practices today, the latter at 6 p.m. They will have two more Tuesday before settling into the normal one-a-day routine Wednesday.

Senior linebacker Shaquan James, who missed most of last season with a knee injury, said the program’s new atmosphere is refreshing.

“I’m very excited to get started again,” James said. “I’m coming back off an injury and I want to see how my knee does.”

Porters Chapel Academy will go with a different schedule than the other Warren County teams. The Eagles planned to lift weights for the opening hour, practice for two, take a 45-minute break, and then come back for another 90-minute practice.

One of the areas coach Wade Patrick wants to shape up in the early workouts will be the Eagles’ defense.

“We’re going to do some different things on defense so we will work a lot on defensive terminology. We’re still a four-man front, but coach (Bill) Fleming will handle the defense, so changes have been made.”

PCA had 22 varsity players at today’s practice and 23 on the junior high team. That’s eight more than last year’s combined total of 37 players.

Junior quarterback Jonah Masterson was anxious to get started.

“Two-a-days are always an exciting time,” Masterson said. “We want to get to work.”

St. Aloysius coach B.J. Smithhart, meanwhile, said he’ll keep things simple when his team takes the field this afternoon.

“We’re going to do basic stuff, alignments, running, just about the same stuff any coach in America would do on the first day,” Smithhart said.