At the end of Friday night's game between Wellborn and Pleasant Valley, somebody was finally going to get to celebrate their first win of the season.

Sadly for Raider fans, it wasn't Pleasant Valley.

The Raiders dropped another heartbreaker, 24-18, to fall to 0-4 on the season. And if things couldn't get any worse, Pleasant Valley won't get a break in its Week 5 non-region match-up. The Raiders take on Jacksonville, which is 3-1, and fresh off its first win over Alexandria in Death Valley since 1989.

Friday night against Wellborn, the task was simple — stop Delrickus Rhoden, the Panthers' star tailback.

The problem became the execution of the task.

There wasn't much to the game plan that Wellborn employed:

"(Coach Jeff Smith) said he was going to give me the ball and drive downfield 'til I was ready to throw up," Rhoden told the Star on Friday night.

"I didn't take him seriously. But we were on the goal line in the second quarter, and I was about to puke."

And Smith did shoulder Rhoden with the load. The senior carried the ball 38 times and rushed for 223 yards and all of the Panthers' touchdowns. His scoring runs were 4, 1, 19 and 4 yards.

But despite the all-Rhoden attack, Pleasant Valley was far from out of the game — thanks to Michael Lockridge.

Lockridge recorded all three of the Raiders touchdowns.

He scored his first on a 52-yard run in the first half.

In the second half, he tallied more than half of his nightly passing total with a 48-yard gain to Lance Brown to set up his 3-yard scoring run.

He also added a 11-yard run.

With Lockridge's legs and the Raiders' defense, Pleasant Valley was in it at the end. With less than six minutes remaining, a drive stalled after a 30-yard Lockridge-to-Brown pass.

With 26 seconds remaining, Pleasant Valley had one last chance for the win, but an interception by Jarvis Bolton sealed the Wellborn win.

The Raiders will go on the road to take on Jacksonville on Friday night before jumping back into region play. But getting back to region play won't immediately provide an easy opportunity for a win.

In the sixth and seventh week, the Raiders face Leeds, the defending Class 3A state champion, and Piedmont, one of the top teams in Class 3A.

Perhaps the lone good news for Pleasant Valley is both games will be at home.