On Warren Central’s third play of the season, quarterback Jesse Wilson carried the ball inside the 5-yard line, got spun around, and fumbled. Oak Grove’s Dakyius Sims pounced on it for what, on some nights, might have been a morale-killing turnover.

On this one, it was just a minor hiccup and a footnote to a dominating performance.

Warren Central recorded a safety and touchdowns on its next two possessions after Wilson’s fumble. The quarterback recovered to throw two touchdown passes and rush for a team-high 83 yards, and the Vikings routed Oak Grove 29-3 in the Red Carpet Bowl on Friday night at Vicksburg’s Memorial Stadium.

Warren Central won in the Red Carpet Bowl for the second time in three seasons.

“We challenged our guys. Our community puts this Red Carpet Bowl on, and we take a lot of pride in trying to keep that trophy here. It really means a lot to our seniors,” Warren Central coach Josh Morgan said.

In a matchup of Class 6A powerhouses — Warren Central and Oak Grove were two of only six teams in Class 6A to win at least 10 games last season — only one looked the part.

Warren Central rolled up 263 rushing yards and held Oak Grove to 195 yards of total offense. Joe’Vanta Shorter ran for 78 yards and a touchdown for Warren Central. Demarcus Jones had 72 yards and a touchdown on the ground, and also caught a 23-yard touchdown pass.

The defensive effort was especially impressive for a unit that lost seven starters.

Oak Grove was one of the highest-scoring teams in Class 6A in 2015, averaging nearly 35 points per game. On Friday night, its only points came on a 25-yard field goal by Brennan Sobiesk early in the second quarter.

“Our guys did a good job of tackling in open spaces, which is where they try to create mismatches,” Morgan said. “I thought we took away the big play from them for the most part, and that really helped us.”

After Wilson’s fumble on the opening series of the game, the Vikings quickly dropped the hammer. Tyrel Smith sacked Oak Grove’s Max Crawford in the end zone for a safety and a 2-0 lead two plays later.

After getting the free kick near midfield, Jones zipped up the middle for a 39-yard touchdown run on the Vikings’ next offensive possession. Jones added his 23-yard TD catch on a wheel route on the drive after that, and Warren Central had a 15-0 lead with 4:02 left in the first quarter.

It added another touchdown before halftime, on a 10-yard pass from Wilson to Shonterrance Walton with 1:33 to go in the second quarter. That capped a 14-play, 70-yard drive that chewed five minutes off the clock.

“That was our mindset coming into the game. I knew if I won the coin toss, I wanted to get our guys out there first and try to snatch that momentum early. We were able to do that,” Morgan said. “We had an unfortunate turnover there, but we responded and went right back to work again. I felt like we got to play on a short field most of the time, which helped us out in these kind of conditions.”

Warren Central’s defense showed its stuff in the second half. It stopped two long drives by Oak Grove, including one that got inside the 10-yard line. The Warriors decided to kick a field goal after a false start penalty backed them up to the 11, and then a bad snap nixed the attempt.

WC took over at the 20 and embarked on a 10-play, 80-yard drive that put an exclamation point on the win. Shorter finished it off with a 2-yard run to make it 29-3 a minute into the fourth quarter.

The rest of the fourth quarter was a victory lap for the Vikings, with backups seeing playing time and the hometown team walking away with its coveted trophy — and a lot of momentum going forward.

“It’s big. It’s big. We’ve been working toward this all offseason,” Warren Central senior linebacker Kamren Ellis said. “As soon as coach told us we’re not playing Harrison Central, we’re playing Oak Grove for the Red Carpet Bowl, everybody was hyped. Since then, we’ve been preparing and working for it, and it turned out to be good.”