With its goal of playing a first-round playoff game at home next week still intact, Gore hosts Warner in an important District A-8 contest on Thursday night at K.G. Horn Stadium.

Gore's seniors will be honored before the regular-season finale kicks off at 7:30 p.m.

The Pirates are 5-4 overall and 5-2 in the league after dropping a 20-19 decision at Quinton last week. Eighth-ranked Panama leads the district with a 7-0 record, and the Razorbacks travel to Pocola (6-1) on Friday night in another key league game. Wins by Gore and Panama would give the Pirates a first-round home playoff game next week because Gore defeated Pocola earlier this season.

"The kids know this is a big game, and Warner is a big rival," Gore head coach Brandon Ellis said. "There will be a lot of people there on Thursday. Warner got a big win on Friday, and we're coming off a loss, so their momentum scares me. It's a tough test."

Warner shut out Talihina 9-0 last week, and the Eagles are 4-5 for the season and 4-3 in the district. A victory over the Pirates would give the Eagles third place in the league and push Gore to fourth, since Central, Talihina and Quinton are all 3-4 in the district. Porum (1-6) and Keota (0-8) round out the league standings.

Some of Warner's key players are senior quarterback Andrew Mealer, running backs Nathan Morton and Baylen Fowler (5-foot-6, 215 pounds) and junior wide receiver Jed Baker, who occasionally lines up at quarterback for the Eagles.

Kicker Matt Denton accounted for all of Warner's points last week, booting field goals of 32, 25 and 36 yards.

In a 21-10 loss to Central earlier this season, Morton rushed for 57 yards, Mealer completed 3-of-6 passes for 55 yards and Baker ran for a 4-yard touchdown and was 4-of-9 for 32 yards in the passing department.

"On offense Warner will run the spread with no backs and throw the ball around, and then line up with three in the backfield and put one in motion and try to pound it up the middle," said Ellis. "On defense they'll put eight or nine guys in the box, play man-to-man on our wide receivers and blitz every single play.

"Don't give up the big play and stuff the middle are keys for our defense. We also need to have field position all night.

"On offense we have to hold on to the ball, and overall we've done a pretty good job of doing that all year. We also have to finish drives. A couple of times in the Quinton game our defense got us the ball, but we didn't capitalize. We need to capitalize every chance we get and not have any stalled drives."

Gore beat Warner 41-0 in 2006.