The Pike Liberal Arts school Patriots return home Friday night against Morgan Academy in hopes of picking up an important region victory.

In last week’s 56-7 loss to Monroe Academy, the Patriots struggled to get anything going offensively. Head coach Gene Allen said the team was not physical enough.

“They are a very good team and they out-played us. They were a lot more physical than we were. It was no secret we knew their offensive and defensive line were going to be really good,” Allen said.

“Hopefully we can learn from it and get a lot better. We made a lot of mistakes that we need to learn from this week.”

The team is eager to put last week’s loss behind them.

“They are ready to go because it is a region game and a game we need to win,” Allen said. “We came in Monday and had a good film day. They can learn a lot from film and see the mistakes they made. They came out to practice and worked on correcting them.”

The Patriots also struggled fundamentally and had a hard time being where they were needed to be to defend against a tough Monroe offense. This week the Patriots have been practicing fundamentals to make sure the important things are getting done the correct way.

“They are just working on doing what they are supposed to be doing. We had one or two on defense who weren’t where they were supposed to be,” Allen said. “If there is no one there they are going to cut back and make big plays.”

The Patriots are a little banged up heading into Friday night and will have to shuffle players to compensate for the lack of depth.

“We still have a couple of guys out. We have a couple of guys that got hurt in practice this week that are also going to be out,” Allen said. “Health-wise we are not great but it’s not terrible for this time of the year. It’s not an excuse; we are going to be ready to play.”

The Patriots will have to defend a spread offense that will open up a lot of targets for the Senators offensively forcing the Patriot defense to be more physical on the defensive side of the ball. On defense the Senators will feature a 4-3 base defense.

The Senators come to Troy with a 0-2 record after losing to Lee Scott and Monroe Academy. Allen is preparing his team to play a hungry opponent desperately searching for the first win of the season.

“They are going to present a challenge because it is a region game and they are going to want to beat us as bad as we want to beat them,” Allen said. “They have already lost a region game and they don’t want to lose two.”

Kick off between the Patriots and Senators is 7 p.m. a Pike Lib.