In the first half Friday, Warren Central and Vicksburg were virtually in a dead heat.

Each team scored two touchdowns, with all of them coming on deep passes. They were within three yards of each other in total offense.

In the second half, however, Warren Central made the right adjustments to pull ahead and Vicksburg couldn’t keep up. The Vikings ripped off 28 straight points, held the Gators to six first downs — four of which came on one drive — and claimed the River City Classic trophy for the fifth consecutive year with a 42-21 victory at Memorial Stadium.

“At halftime, coach told us to step it up. They punched us in the mouth the first half. But the second half, we had to step it up a lot,” said Warren Central wide receiver Shaun Walton, who caught two touchdown passes. “We like doing the punching and staying on with it.”

Warren Central quarterback Jesse Wilson threw three touchdown passes and ran for 112 yards and two more touchdowns. Joe Shorter ran for a team-high 150 yards on 23 carries as the Vikings totaled 292 rushing yards as a team — their third consecutive game with at least 260 yards.

Cornerback Shakee Shaw intercepted two passes, the second of which he returned 70 yards for a touchdown that gave Warren Central a 35-14 lead with 8:59 left in the game.

Warren Central’s five-game winning streak in the series is its longest since it won 11 in a row from 1991-2001.

“We really take it game by game and year by year. We just try to be as best we can. We’re very proud to be on the winning side of this game. Vicksburg played a very good game. It was a slugfest there for a little bit,” Warren Central coach Josh Morgan said.

Indeed it was.

Vicksburg (2-1) struck first, scoring on a 40-yard pass from Joe Johnson to James Allen with 4:11 left in the first quarter. The extra point was blocked, and Warren Central (3-0) answered with a 25-yard TD pass from Wilson to Demarcus Jones on its next possession to take a 7-6 lead.

Vicksburg came right back, with Johnson connecting with Raheam Moore for a 16-yard score and a 14-6 lead after the two-point conversion.

Moore finished with nine receptions for 113 yards and two touchdowns.

Johnson completed nine consecutive passes at one point in the first half, and finished 25-of-40 for 252 yards and three touchdowns. His receivers, however, dropped five passes, including one that resulted in Shaw’s pick six in the fourth quarter.

The Gators were also hampered by an injury to leading rusher Marlon Hodge. He sprained his knee in the first half and did not return. His absence all but eliminated the running game from the Gators’ offense.

Hodge went down on the series where Johnson hit Moore for the TD that gave the Gators a 14-7 lead. From then on, it was almost all Warren Central. Vicksburg had three first downs and committed two turnovers in a span of six possessions.

“We’re still trying to turn a corner. We’ve got to eliminate the drops. It was at least six or seven drops. And the run game is key. When we lost Marlon Hodge, our leading rusher, that hurt us,” Vicksburg coach Marcus Rogers said. “I thought we had some receivers out there where we could have made some plays, and we just didn’t execute tonight.”

Wilson hit Walton for a 20-yard touchdown with 1:59 left in the half to tie it. On the other side of halftime, the Vikings took the kickoff and went on a 12-play, 70-yard drive capped off by Wilson’s 9-yard run to take the lead for good.

Warren Central’s next possession was highlighted by a power failure that delayed the game for about 15 minutes. A circuit breaker was tripped and it caused the lights on the visitor’s side of the stadium to go out. Wilson tossed a 28-yard TD pass to Walton on the first play once the game resumed to put the Vikings ahead 28-14.

“We had to respond. It was one of those moments,” Morgan said. “We told them at halftime that we needed to pick things up, and there’s still a lot of places we could have been a lot sharper at. Especially our second half drives, we were really hurting ourselves with penalties and things we needed to stay away from.”

The final nail in the coffin was Shaw’s interception return. Trailing by two touchdowns, but with the ball at the Warren Central 31-yard line and enough time to still mount a comeback, the Gators were trying to drive. Johnson threw a hitch pass to the right side that tipped off the hands of Allen and into the hands of Shaw. He zipped up the sideline for the score.

“It helped. These games right here, you never know. Momentum is a son of a gun in this game, and that really gave us breathing room,” Morgan said.

Vicksburg got a touchdown back on its next possession, when Johnson hit Moore for a 12-yard score with 6:01 left. It was the Gators’ only offensive highlight after their promising first half, however. They turned it over on downs at their own 5 in the last two minutes, and Wilson scored on a 3-yard run with 51 seconds left to put an exclamation point on the Vikings’ victory.

“They played the same. We just didn’t execute late in the game,” Moore said. “I guess we got too high on ourselves and forgot the game wasn’t over.”