NATCHEZ &8212; You could say there&8217;s a budding rivalry between Oak Forest and Trinity Episcopal just by looking at their recent history.

But then again, a rivalry means there&8217;s pressure on both sides not to lose. The victor can boast of the win until the next time, and the loser sort of goes into hiding.

That&8217;s not the case with the Saints. As good as things are going and as much as they&8217;re not favored to win this game &8212; like the many before it &8212; a win would be nice but loss wouldn&8217;t end their worlds.

When the Saints travel to Amite, La., Friday for their final regular season game, a win would clinch the District 4-AA championship. A loss likely won&8217;t crash anyone&8217;s dreams.

&8220;We&8217;re trying to prove everybody wrong this year,&8221; said receiver Kris Ford, who had over 200 yards receiving last week. &8220;We were picked to win two games this year &8212; Amite and Tri-County. When two-a-days in August started, everybody out there was saying playoffs. We&8217;ve got to bring our A-plus-plus game this week, but we feel we can match up with any team in the state.&8221;

For the Saints, it&8217;s been a wave of momentum that hasn&8217;t ended when many folks thought it would. They all point to a loss at home to Centreville Academy where things went really bad, and since then the team has pulled off four straight wins over four quality teams to get in this position.

The Saints are already in the playoffs. A win means they host Central Hinds next week in the first round, and a loss puts them playing at Copiah Academy.

&8220;There&8217;s absolutely zero pressure on us,&8221; Trinity head coach David King said. &8220;We&8217;re going to walk in there like we have the last few weeks and play the game as hard as we can. Nobody outside of a straight jacket would have known we&8217;d be at this point. We&8217;re 8-2, and anything else would be gravy.&8221;

But there&8217;s a simmering history between the two teams, one that includes the Saints&8217; last trip to OFA during the 2003 season when they pulled out a win in double overtime en route to their appearance in the Class A title game.

Yet it&8217;s the Jackets that have claimed two of the last three meetings &8212; both of their wins have come in Natchez &8212; and they may have their best team of any of the previous meetings on the field Friday night.

&8220;Oak Forest it always, always good, and they&8217;ve got a good senior class,&8221; said senior Kyle Dunaway, one of two players who remain from that 2003 victory. &8220;They&8217;re not as big as the teams we&8217;ve been playing, but they&8217;re strong and fast.

&8220;That (2003 win) was exciting. They had come to our place the year before and brought that sheriff&8217;s car. Every time they&8217;d score they&8217;d turn on the lights. That made us mad, and we brought a car down there. We left it running 30 minutes after the game. But they always play us tough.&8221;

The biggest thing this season with the Yellow Jackets may be their experience, King said. Last year&8217;s club that lost to Centreville Academy in the South State championship was junior-heavy, and all that experience is back this season.

The Yellow Jackets&8217; only losses this season were to Simpson Academy in Week 1 and Copiah Academy last week. Even the recent loss was avoidable &8212; statistically, they out-gained Copiah considerably.

&8220;That whole team has been playing together since they were in ninth grade,&8221; Dunaway said. &8220;They&8217;ve got a lot of experience. I&8217;ve watched the game films 10 times. They should have beaten Copiah. Oak Forest made a lot of mistakes, and Copiah capitalized. We&8217;ve got to play an error-free ball game like Copiah did.&8221;

That includes on offense, where the Saints have used the passing game to really create havoc on opposing defenses. Ford had the big game last week, and three of the last four games have featured big gains in the passing game with Stevan Ridley at quarterback.

Last week Ridley threw for 356 yards and four touchdowns &8212; including the game-winner with three seconds left to Tripp Bryant.

&8220;We don&8217;t want people to know what we&8217;re going to do,&8221; King said. &8220;We had to do it at Columbia for survival. We didn&8217;t run it a lot during the season, but we were working on it every day. I&8217;ve been so proud of our pass blocking. Our inside guys &8212; Dunaway, (Mark) Harveston, Kolby Godfrey and Langdon Morrison &8212; they&8217;ve stepped up. They can get in there, cut and use their quickness.&8221;