For Warren Central, Saturday’s 17-13 loss to Hattiesburg is going to sting for a long while.

The Vikings (1-2) will lament the missed opportunities in what could’ve been the signature win — over the ninth-ranked team in last week’s Associated Press high school football poll — in head coach Josh Morgan’s tenure.

None was worse than the defensive lapse that led to Hattiesburg’s winning touchdown.

After Michael Mason’s field goal put WC up 13-10, Tony Bridges — who had an interception earlier — waited to scoop up the ensuing kickoff at the Hattiesburg 1-yard line and was overwhelmed by a host of Vikings at the 3. On the next play, Hattiesburg quarterback Jamal Hatten, who had a 26-yard run earlier, sidestepped one defender and took it to the house, 97 yards, to put the Tigers (3-0) ahead to stay.

“Any time you have a three-point lead with four minutes left and you have the other team buried on the 3-yard line, you really couldn’t ask for much more,” Morgan said. “We had a bust right there at the line of scrimmage where I thought we should’ve had him and it was really a backbreaker. I hate to see our guys lose on just one play. We’ve got a Natchez team (Friday) and it’s (the loss to Hattiesburg) over with right now. We’ll look back at it, the opportunities we had not only to win, but to put it away, and we just really didn’t take advantage of that.”

WC had one more chance, with three minutes and change remaining. But with the Vikings forced to largely abandon the running game with time ticking down, the Hattiesburg front seven was able to pin its ears back and go after WC quarterback Carlisle Koestler. He was sacked or hit four times on the final drive. Despite that, he completed passes to Marcus Ragan and Justin Williams to get the Vikings to midfield, before two straight incompletions ended the drive.

“We’ve got to keep working hard and make more plays on offense,” Williams said. “If we would’ve made more plays on offense, we would’ve gotten this. We’ve got to fix a couple of things on offense and the defense did a good job. We’ve got pick our heads up and get back to work at practice.”

Both teams were limited last week, practice-wise, thanks to the wrath of Tropical Storm Isaac. It might have accounted for the rough play on both sides. Each quarterback threw a pair of interceptions.

WC’s running game was solid, as Aaron Stamps finished with 20 carries for 92 yards and a touchdown.

“We ran the ball good, but the turnovers, the interceptions killed us,” said Koestler, who finished 7-of-17 passing for 52 yards and two interceptions. “We should’ve been up by 14 already. We just have to carry it over to Natchez.”