AMES, Iowa — Two winless Class 5A football teams will square off on Friday night to battle it out to see who can pick up its first win of the season.

The Norwalk Warriors, who made the jump from class 4A to 5A this year, will travel north to face the Ames Little Cyclones in this week’s Football Friday Primetime game.

Norwalk head coach Paul Patterson said his team is doing the right things, but needs to get over the hump to pick up its first win.

“And that’s the big thing right now, right, is trying to figure out a way to get a win,” Patterson said. “And so we still have to worry an awful lot about ourselves and try to execute better than what we have the first three weeks. And obviously, the teams that we’ve played have tried to do something to eliminate that execution. But at the same time, we still need to be worried about ourselves and trying to figure that out.”

Jesse VonBehren is in his first year as the head coach of the Little Cyclones. He said his team needs to focus on itself and do the little things right.

“Simply just try to keep improving, keep getting better, control what we can control, and then just try to put our best foot forward on Friday night,” VonBehren said. “We preach that we win games, you know, through practice and through preparation in the season. And we’re looking forward to that to come to fruition here.”

On the player side of things, Norwalk senior Eli Robbins has announced his verbal commitment to play football for the Iowa Hawkeyes. He plays the wide receiver spot on offense and as a safety on defense. He also currently leads class 5A in receptions.

“We need to win the battle up front,” Robbins said. “That’s one thing this week that I think we need to improve on. So we’ve been watching film, definitely going harder in practice, understanding what we need to do. Yeah. Another thing is we got to be able to stop the run along with wind up front. We’ve got to be able to stop the run on defense. You know, we allowed a lot last week.”

Johari Muigai is a senior free safety for the Little Cyclones. This year, he has recovered a fumble, caught an interception, and recorded 9.5 tackles — all in the first three games. Two winless teams battling it out will be a grueling game until the end.

“I know it’s going to be, going to be a hard game,” VonBehren said. “Just going to be a lot of heart. We have the players, just knowing that we have the heart on the field and they’re as hungry as we are. So we just going to be able to put on a show.”

The game will kick off at the Ames High School football stadium at 7 p.m. on Friday. The game can be watched on WHO 13, on our website at WHO13.com, or on the WHO 13+ app downloadable to your smart TV.