The Pleasant Home Eagles (0-1) hope to put up a fight as they prepare to take on No. 8 Elba (1-0) in region play tonight in Pleasant Home.

“I want us to come out and give it a good try,” Pleasant Home head coach Rick Mercer said. “They are a very good team that should be ranked No. 1, but they are in our region and they are on the schedule, so we have to play them.”

Mercer said he just wants to see his team make Elba earn everything they get.

“It’s going to be a tall order to slow them down,” Mercer said. “If they leave here with a W, I hope that they leave here knowing that they had to earn it. Of course, we hope to come away with the upset, but we just don’t want to get anyone hurt. If we have chance to win, that will be wonderful.”

Weather has a kept the Eagles off the field for most of the week, but Mercer said that won’t be an excuse.

“We haven’t been able to get outside much this week because of the weather,” Mercer said. “Everyone else around here has been dealing with the same thing this week, so we aren’t the only team that’s had to deal with that. I just hope the field dries out soon so I can get out there and paint the field.”

Mecer said that the Elba Tigers well be a tough test for the Eagles.

“We’ve had two weeks to prepare for these guys,” Mercer said. “They were a great 2A team and now they dropped down to 1A. They still look like a team that could win a 2A championship. They are as good of a team as I’ve prepared for my four years at Pleasant Home. They do things that I think we can stop and I think we have some things in place to move the ball on them.”

Pleasant Home and Elba are scheduled to begin at 7 p.m., tonight in Pleasant Home.