Since November, the Vicksburg Gators have been in a scoring drought that makes the Sahara Desert look like a water park.

They’ve scored a total of five goals — four of them against Callaway — in nine games and been shut out six times. They did enough to make the playoffs, though, and now their coach is hoping the Gators can be patient enough to wait out another potential dry spell.

Michael Guidry said when the Gators (5-12) get impatient, they get sloppy. When they get sloppy, they give up goals, and when they give up goals, they lose. Keeping a level head is key as they travel to take on Lewisburg (13-4-1) in a first-round Class 5A matchup tonight at 7.

“We’re not going to get instant gratification. One of the things we’ve struggled with a lot is understanding that if it’s goalless 20 minutes in, that’s OK. That’s a good thing,” Vicksburg coach Michael Guidry said. “We get the idea that if we don’t have a positive result after 15 or 20 minutes, we start to deviate from the things that work for us, and that’s when we get in trouble.”

With the Gators’ lack of scoring punch, Guidry made no secret of the fact that they’ll go into tonight’s game with a defensive mindset. It’s also no secret that the Gators don’t necessarily need to score a conventional goal to win.

In the playoffs, the 80-minute regulation period is followed by a pair of 10-minute overtime periods and then a shootout. A scoreless draw and a shootout victory is as good as any other this time of year.

Guidry said keeping that in mind, as well as the idea that a strong defensive effort could swing some momentum his team’s way, would be an asset.

“If we can keep them off the board, confidence is a tricky thing,” Guidry said. “If we give them a tough 25, 30 minutes it might rattle their confidence a little bit and cause them to make some mistakes. That’s what we’re trying to do is use that to our advantage and get them on their heels if they don’t get an early lead.”

The Gators might need all of their strategy and psychological tricks to pull out a victory against the Division 1-5A champions. Lewisburg won 5-0 when the teams played 11 days ago at Memorial Stadium.

That was the third of four games in four days for Lewisburg. Guidry acknowledged that the Patriots likely rested some players and, knowing that a playoff rematch was possible, played a more conservative strategy that they’ll show tonight. He also said there were some things he could glean from that game.

“As far as personnel goes, I’m not sure how much of that they showed. They might have been resting some people,” Guidry said. “Style is style. We saw that they like to get wide, we saw that they push up their outside backs. We’re just going to have to get our midfield really involved on the counter, but not try to push things too much. They’re a team we’re going to have to build on. We can’t just go from defensive third to attacking third with a single ball.”