NATCHEZ — Natchez High School senior Levarious Dorsey has been paving the way for his teammates since middle school, and this season he is looking forward to one last hoorah with the Bulldogs.

Dorsey, an offensive and defensive lineman for Natchez, said he is ready to share one more season with his long-time teammates.

“(I’m looking forward) to just getting to play with a lot of my classmates,” he said. “We’ve pretty much been playing with each other since middle school. It will be big to play this last year together.”

Dorsey, 17, said after being knocked out of the playoffs in either the first or second round his first three years at Natchez, he wants to go out on top this season and leave Natchez with a winning legacy for his class.

“We’re trying to prove to everybody that we know we can get to the playoffs, but we want to prove we can win south state and get to Jackson for the state (championship),” Dorsey said.

Dorsey said his offensive line unit at Natchez is experienced this season and is ready to be one of the top units on the team.

“I’m ready for the season. I’ve been waiting on this for three years,” he said. “We have the most returning starters on the offensive line, and this season (the offensive) line is the strength of the team right now.”

Dorsey said he is one of four seniors on the Bulldog offensive line this year. The other senior starters will be Xavier Green, Nick Lewis and Kaldrick Tenner, Dorsey said.

“We know one another, we know each other’s weaknesses and can help one another,” Dorsey said.

He said he stepped up as a leader this summer, and his job is to keep his teammates fired up and push them through difficult times.

Dorsey said he has played offensive line since he first started playing in middle school. He plays defensive line as well, but has been focused primarily on the offensive side of the ball most of his career.

“(I like) offense, because I have better technique at offense than defense,” he said. “When I cam up in ninth grade all the defensive spots were taken, so I worked a lot at offensive drills. I pretty much learned offense quicker and didn’t play much defense.”

Dorsey, a three-year starter on the Bulldogs’ offensive line, said he played more on the offensive side of the ball in middle school as well.

He is coming off a successful junior campaign individually that saw him named second-team All-Region 3-6A and third-team All-Metro last year.

“I want to try to finish first and play in the all-star game,” he said.

Dorsey is receiving interest from some colleges, including Southeastern University in Louisiana and Arkansas State University, he said. He hopes with a good year he will start receiving more interest this season, he said.

Dorsey said he has worked hard this summer during Natchez’s conditioning program.

“We’ve been doing a lot of exercises to work on explosion, like power clean, squat and bench press,” Dorsey said. “Conditioning is going good, there is a lot of competition that helps conditioning.”

Dorsey also attended Mississippi State’s lineman camp this summer and worked on agility drills, he said.

Dorsey said his final summer before his last season has him prepared to make the most of his season.

“This is my last year and I feel stronger this year,” he said. “I fell real good and I want a championship.”