The first half of the season did not go well for Porters Chapel Academy.

The Eagles were rocked by injuries, hammered by their own inconsistency, and all too often crushed by their opponents.

The good news, though, is that they get a fresh start. Tonight’s game in Meridian against Russell Christian is the first of two District 5-A contests in October that will determine their playoff fate. PCA needs to win both to reach the postseason for the sixth consecutive season, but that glimmer of hope is enough to shake the team back into focus after a 2-4 start.

“This is our season. Then we have three other games and the season comes again,” PCA coach Bill Fleming said. “We lose this one and win the next four, and we finish 5-6 and it doesn’t mean anything.”

PCA picked up a forfeit win last week. It was originally scheduled to play Veritas, which switched from 11-man to 8-man football before the season. Besides putting another mark in the win column, the open date helped the Eagles in a variety of ways.

Several injured players will return from injuries this week, including quarterback Colby Rushing and linebacker Jay Wiley. Rushing had been nursing an ankle injury that limited his mobility in the pocket, while Wiley has missed the last three games with a torn ACL. Wiley was originally thought to be done for the season, but was told by doctors that his injury couldn’t be made worse by playing. He was fitted for a brace and returned to practice this week, and will start at linebacker against Russell Christian.

Before his injury, Wiley led the team with 353 rushing yards and 37 tackles. He had 141 tackles last season. Fleming said Wiley would not play tailback again this season.

“Jay has always been a good player on defense. With him there, it gives the defense a whole ‘nother dimension. It’ll be a big help,” defensive end Reed Gordon said.

The time off has also allowed the Eagles to evaluate what went wrong in their last three games. After starting 1-1, they lost three in a row by a combined score of 126-21. Injuries played a part — nearly every starter left a game hurt at one time or another — but sloppy play was another factor.

University Christian, for example, scored four times in its first six plays en route to a 49-14 victory. PCA also turned the ball over five times in that game.

“A lot of people were missing blocks. The running backs weren’t seeing their holes and the quarterbacks weren’t seeing their receivers. It was a lot of small things,” fullback Kruz Federick said. “Add them all up and that’s how you get a loss.”

Fleming added that the coaching staff was also to blame. In film study, he noticed other little things like the team too often running to the right side behind its best linemen Caze Brewer and Ghost Jones. Fleming promised to change things up a bit beginning tonight.

“We knew we were showing some tendencies. We put our experienced guys on the right sid eof the line and and ran behind them 90 percent of the time,” Fleming said. “We’ve made a couple of adjustments to our formations and you’ll see that on Friday night.”

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Contact Ernest Bowker at ebowker@vicksburgpost.com