Warren Central lost everything, and nothing, all at the same time Friday night.

The Vikings’ Region 2-6A championship hopes disappeared with a 28-10 loss to Starkville. However, they can still finish in second place and host a playoff game depending on the outcome of this week’s regular-season finales.

Reminding themselves of the big picture, and not the disappointment of their first loss in more than two months, figures to be the focus for the Vikings as they get back to work today and begin preparations for their next game Friday night in Jackson against Callaway.

“The thing we have to do is don’t quit. Monday we’re going to watch film, correct our mistakes, and start working on Callaway,” Warren Central senior wide receiver Larry Ferguson said. “It hurts, but we can still win state. We’ve got a long way to go. We can still get the first round of the playoffs as a home game. It’s just a bounce back. We’ve got to bounce back.”

Warren Central (8-2, 5-1 Region 2-6A) will finish either second or third in Region 2-6A depending on what happens in its game with Callaway (5-6, 1-5), and in the one between Starkville (9-1, 6-0) and Clinton (7-3, 5-1).

Madison Central (6-5, 3-3) will be the No. 4 seed from the region and go on the road in the first round to face South Panola.

The playoff scenarios:

4If Starkville beats Clinton, it will clinch the region title. Warren Central will finish second and Clinton third based on a head-to-head tiebreaker.

4If Clinton wins and Warren Central loses, Clinton will be the region champion, Starkville second and Warren Central third.

4If Warren Central and Clinton both win, it will create a three-way tie between those two and Starkville for first place that will be broken by point differential in their head-to-head meetings. Warren Central is currently at minus-10 points, Clinton at minus-2 and Starkville at plus-12, since there is a 12-point cap for each game.

Clinton, then, would need to win by at least eight points Friday to win the three-way tiebreaker. Warren Central can’t improve its point differential and is too far behind to win in that scenario, and thus would finish third.

The first- and second-place teams will host playoff games in the first round, so other than not receiving a region championship trophy there’s not a major difference between the two in terms of the postseason.

There’s a huge difference, however, between second and third.

The second-place team from Region 2-6A will be at home in the first round and play the third-place team from Region 1-6A — either Olive Branch (6-4) or Tupelo (5-5), who play each other Friday night and have both endured mediocre seasons.

The third-place team will have a long road trip to Columbus (7-3), whose three losses this season have been to teams ranked in the top five of their respective classes in the Associated Press poll.

“For us to be at the point where we are in our district, it’s just going to take until next Friday to see exactly where we end up,” Warren Central coach Josh Morgan said after the loss to Starkville. “We’re in that talk, and we’ll see exactly where we land.”

Up next

Warren Central at Callaway

Friday, 7 p.m.

Radio: 105.5 FM

Online: For live scoring updates on Friday night, visit Facebook.com/thevicksburgpost or Twitter.com/vicksburgpost