One week after earning one of its most thrilling wins in recent memory, Warren Central settled for one of the dullest.

Tim Jones ran for 165 yards and a touchdown, and the Vikings held Greenville-Weston to 68 yards of total offense while slogging their way to a 12-0 win on Friday night.

The teams combined for 10 pass attempts in the game, which lasted just an hour and 45 minutes. It was a big change from the previous week, when WC beat Northwest Rankin in overtime in a three-hour marathon.

“(Greenville) had won by slugging and slugging, and you make a mistake. We didn’t want to get ourselves into a scoring thing where we’re struggling to catch up. We didn’t let them take their ballgame to us,” WC coach Curtis Brewer said. “We played within ourseleves. It might not be pretty, but it was a win. What the players and the school and the community needs are wins.”

And the Vikings are certainly winning this season. Friday’s victory improved their record to 4-2 overall and 2-0 in Region 2-6A, setting up a showdown with nationally-ranked Madison Central next week. If the Vikings can knock off Madison — ranked No. 1 in Mississippi’s Class 6A Associated Press poll and No. 15 in USA Today’s national poll — they’ll have sole possession of first place and an inside track to the region championship.

“It’s a big game,” Jones said. “I’ve been waiting for this one since the ninth grade.”

First, though, the Vikings had to get past Greenville. Using their run-heavy gameplan, the Vikings scored the game’s only touchdown at the end of an 18-play, 95-yard drive midway through the second quarter. Seventeen of the plays were runs, 11 of them by Jones. The strong and speedy tailback finally pushed the ball over the goal line on a 3-yard run with 7:48 left in the half — 8 1/2 minutes after WC had started the march.

Fullback Austin Roberts added 13 carries for 59 yards in the game, and also caught two passes — the only two the Vikings completed — for 31 yards.

Warren Central totaled 255 rushing yards as a team.

“It was good blocking. We’ve got a great set of boys up front,” said Jones, who carried the ball 26 times.

The Vikings never really pulled away once they got the lead, but never seemed in danger of losing it either. Greenville only advanced inside the WC 30-yard line once, then promptly lost 26 yards on a poorly executed sweep and a sack. The Hornets ran five plays in the fourth quarter. They resulted in a holding penalty, a 2-yard run, an interception, a 3-yard loss and an intentional grounding penalty in the end zone.

The grounding penalty resulted in a safety, and made it 12-0. Devon Bell had kicked a 37-yard field goal in the third quarter to make it 10-0.

“We just held down the run game and waited on their passing game,” Jones said. “We made them go one-dimensional and shut them out.”

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Contact Ernest Bowker at ebowker@vicksburgpost.com