NATCHEZ — Friday night’s game at Adams County Christian School will feature two football teams heading in opposite directions in their respective seasons.

Centreville Academy comes into Friday’s contest having won its last three games by a combined score of 112-21.

ACCS (1-5, 0-1) has dropped its last three contests by a combined score of 119-28.

Despite their recent struggles the Rebels are staying positive and looking to improve this season, head coach Hunter McKeivier said.

“They understand every week we are getting better,” McKeivier said. “We have to continue to try to compete every play. We are a few mistakes in every game away from things being different for us. If we take care of that, we’re in a lot of ball games.”

McKeivier said his focus for this week is to try to eliminate those mistakes.

“For one thing we have to be smarter with ball control,” he said. “We’ve done a lot of ball protection here lately. We have to continue to change our fortune of mistakes, and learn from them. We have a young team that is going to make mistakes, but they are also going to make great things happen.”

McKeivier said it would be important for his defense to remain disciplined and make plays once they get to the football.

“Defensively we have to flow to the ball and tackle when we get there,” he said. “It seems like every single time (tackling) is what’s killed us.”

McKeivier said winning the turnover battle would be key as well.

McKeivier said Friday’s game against Centreville will be the Rebels’ second of three-straight games against MAIS AA top five teams. Centreville lost to Trinity (5-1) last week, plays Centreville (4-2) this week and will travel to Simpson Academy (6-0) next week.

McKeivier said his team’s tough schedule will help later in the season when the Rebels play their final two District 5-AA games.

“I am actually very confident that we have a great shot, if we stay healthy (to do well in district), because we will gain a lot of experience with these tough games,” he said.

Centreville’s good fortune in the last three weeks has provided the Tigers with confidence, and a lot of their success stems from developing cohesion, assistant coach Brian Stutzman said.

“Offensively we’ve gotten in sync,” Stutzman said. “And defensively we are getting people where we need them. (The wins) have given us a lot of momentum, and our focus has intensified. We have their attention now, I think they know what we need to do.”

Stutzman said one issue for Centreville (4-2, 1-0) has been conditioning, and the team has focused on that this week.

“We had a lot of kids with cramps last week,” he said.

Stutzman said ACCS’ offensive backfield of Lester Wells, Christopher Perry and Johnny Smith would be a focus for the defense this week.

“Defensively we have to not run up the field and stay square on the line of scrimmage,” he said. “We have to gang tackle Perry and watch out for the elusiveness of Wells and not give up big plays.”

Stutzman said the Tigers’ offensive line and running backs will need to continue having success Friday, and they will have to prevent turnovers.

Stutzman said games outside of District 6-AA help the Tigers prepare for their tough district match-ups.

“It’s good to play good competition and the games not really count in the district,” he said. “We’re just fine-tuning everything for further down the road.”

Centreville and ACCS will kick off at 7 p.m.