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High heat and a championship caliber football team are what awaits Morristown West Friday evening at Burke-Toney Stadium.

The Trojans will host Elizabethton at 7 p.m., a team coming off a 27-7 thumping of Science Hill on the road in their season opener. Morristown West heads into the game following a 42-12 win over Morristown East in their opening contest last Friday.

For West football coach Alvin Sanders, he knows there is a lot to work on this week in practice so that his team improves from week one to week two.

“Offensively, we didn’t execute very well on Friday from midway to the second quarter through the end of the game,” Sanders said. “We had too many missed assignments. We can’t be successful doing that. Defensively, we had too many missed tackles. We blew coverages and they were able to get behind us and keep drives alive.”

Sanders also noted that his team struggled with cramping on Friday night. With temperatures in the mid-to-high 90’s at kickoff this Friday night, the Trojans will have to be hydrated in order to avoid the same scenario.

“From a conditioning and hydration standpoint, we had starters who didn’t play in the third quarter because they were cramping.” Sanders said. “The thing that I am proud of is our next man up mentality. We just have to make sure we have all our guys available and ready to go.”

For Elizabethton, they head into Friday’s contest with a lot of momentum after taking a commanding win over Science Hill in the Railroad Rumble. In that game, the Cyclones’ running back Zeth Mullins scored two touchdowns, while Rhett Slagle threw a touchdown to Jeriah Griffin. Eli Blevins scored the final points for Elizabethton with a pick-six.

“They look like a championship team already,” Sanders said. “They’re in midseason form. Coach (Shawn) Witten has done a great job getting his guys ready. They have the championship mindset and know their mindset. It’s one of the best offensive teams I’ve seen from them in a while.”

Offensively, Slagle is the man in charge as just a sophomore. Mullins, a senior, is the main running back while the junior Griffin had 57 yards on four catches on Friday night.

Defensively for Elizabethton, Mason Ball and Ben Adams lead the way on the line, while Mullins holds things down in the secondary.

“They’re just a hard unit to deal with,” Sanders said. “They don’t give up big plays or miss tackles. They’re just a really sound football team.”

One thing that is a positive and negative for both teams on Friday night comes in the familiarity. While the two teams didn’t scrimmage this preseason, the Cyclone and Trojans have faced off the majority of preseasons during Sanders and Witten’s tenures.

“It helps because we’ll know exactly what to expect, but it hurts because they’ll know what to expect as well,” Sanders said. “Since I have been here, going on 20 years now, probably 15 of them we have scrimmaged Elizabethton. We haven’t changed a lot and they haven’t changed a lot. This game is going to come down to execution.”

One group that Sanders was pleased with last Friday and knows he will need this coming Friday was his special teams, specifically his punt team. Against East, Gavin Mitchell had two punts with one just going into the end zone while the other was downed on the three-yard line. Mitchell averaged around 45 yards per punt.

“He was nervous during pregame so our first couple of fourth downs in the game, I went for them because I was waiting for him to relax,” Sanders said. “Once he settled down, he was phenomenal. When you can flip the field like that, that’s huge. It takes pressure off our defense and puts their offense on their heels. That’s what we’re going to ask our guys to do. We have to have that week-in-and-week-out.”

While Friday’s contest is another non-region contest, it will be the last one before back-to-back region games at Tennessee High and at home against Daniel Boone. With those two games being so important, Sanders wants to see his team continue to improve on Friday night and compete with a talented football team.

“We have to come out and show that we can grow from week one to week two,” Sanders said. “We have to understand where we need to get to as a team. We’re not happy to play teams close, we want to go out and win games. Playing teams with this caliber is going to get us ready for the playoffs. We’re about to start a gauntlet of tough games, so we have to go prepare and be ready to compete for all four quarters.”

Kickoff for Friday night is set for 7 p.m. at Burke-Toney Stadium.

“This is what we need right now,” Sanders said. “We need to be battle tested and go out and say we can do this. Playing a team with this caliber is going to put us on the right track.”