Vicksburg and Warren Central’s soccer teams already have an early look at the cross-town competition.

A friendly scrimmage between the two teams was played early Tuesday morning. It lasted about two hours with 15-minute quarters played on the recreational field adjacent to Highway 27.

Both teams are on opposite sides of the rebuilding spectrum with Vicksburg being on the inexperienced side and Warren Central returning all-county caliber players for the summer.

Warren Central coach Greg Head’s primary focus was on working the ball and opening up to the field. He’s also looking for players to fill the void left by graduation.

“We lost eight starters so what we’re having to do is revamp our program and rebuild it from the bottom up,” Head said. “We lost three defenders so we’re looking and trying to find guys who can play defense. It’s more of a rebuilding year for us. Losing eight starters, that’s a lot of people you have to replace.”

For the most part, the Vikings are in decent shape to start the perspective season.

Head will look to Braylen Green, Hunt Holdiness and Jacob Cochran to continue their dominance from last season. He also expects Karsten Keyes and John Madison to lead the defensive unit on the field.

“We’ll be a young defense, we’re going to be inexperience but that’s this summer is about, getting the ready,” Head said. “We still got talent and we’re going to be good we just have to figure out where everyone’s going to play.”

Holdiness is returning as a third year starter locking down the center-mid position. Greer and Sean Dixon will play “up top,” but the real position needing to be filled is the outside midfielder.

For Kristen Williams and her Gators, Tuesday’s scrimmage was a time to help test out the kinks of a young team. Williams said this is the first time in two years the program has had summer practices.

A lack of communication plagues the team as teammates still get to know one another.

“They’ve been doing some team building activities during summer practice,” Williams said. “Right now, (I’m) just charging it up to inexperience. But they are trying and for the most part they are listening.”

Williams has a few players that are novices to the sport and has been a bit of an issue.

However, she feels that being able to condition this summer, plus the in-district support from coach Head would help build a foundation for the fall.

“We’ve got a couple of scrimmages on our schedule this summer,” Williams said. “This being our first it’s very rocky but they’re doing ok, as well as I can expect with the experience level. I only have one player with three years of experience.”