THOMASVILLE — A productive off week has the Brookwood Warriors primed to snag their first victory of the season Friday night. 

After an 0-3 start, the Warriors look to notch that elusive first win when they travel to Briarwood Academy in Warrenton. A week of fundamental work on offense and defense has Brookwood coach Shane Boggs confident heading into the team’s third road trip of the season.

“It’s stuff that we would always mix in but not have the time for when you gameplan for someone else,” Boggs said, “getting back to that work on defense, doing some similar work in blocking and special teams. On offense, just focusing on ball skills and all those sorts of things. It was really productive.”

Tackling was a point of emphasis last week and is a reason Brookwood has surrendered 132 points in three games. Open-field tackling and one-on-one tackling need improvement following Brookwood’s only bye week of the season.

“Certainly with that Maclay game, if I was going to make it about two things defensively; No. 1, our pursuit was not good. We just didn’t get enough guys around the football,” Boggs said. “When you do that, you’re putting a ton of pressure on the guy that is there trying to make the tackle. Secondly, we didn’t tackle well, particularly didn’t tackle well out in space. 

“I thought at times, if you go back to Seminole County, we tackled those very athletic kids out in space pretty well. For a lot of the Wewahitchka (Fla.) game, we tackled some very good athletes well. Obviously, that’s what killed us on that last play at Wewahitchka. It certainly was a big story in the Maclay game on defense.”

Tackling will be essential Friday night as the Warriors face the Briarwood Academy Buccaneers. The Bucs are 3-1 and have scored 121 points in their three wins. Senior running back Dax Reese is the focal point in an I-formation offense. He tallied 372 yards and three touchdowns in Briarwood’s 54-17 win over Trinity Christian. 

“They have taken last year’s quarterback and made him the running back. He is very physical, very fast,” Boggs added.