NATCHEZ — MAIS District 5-AA has two playoff spots available for the four teams in the district, and both of those spots are still up for grabs heading into the final two weeks of the season.

Trinity Episcopal and Brookhaven Academy are sitting at 1-0 in district play, and those two teams will face off Oct. 28. Adams County Christian School and Columbia Academy are both still in the playoff hunt at 0-1, but both will need to pull off upsets against the two top teams this week to give themselves a chance at postseason play.

Trinity will travel to Columbia this week, and Saints’ head coach David King said his team always focuses on winning the district match ups.

“Winning all of our district ball games is the ultimate goal,” King said. “This would be a big win as far as accomplishing our ultimate goals.”

Trinity has had great success in district games in recent history. The Saints have not dropped a district game since 2005, and King said his players tend to step things up when preparing for district opponents.

“They seem to get focused on these district games,” he said. “We had a good day Monday and Tuesday, and they got after it pretty good. We are trying to ensure that we improve the fine portions of the game. This part of the year everybody is in good shape, and we are just fine tuning at this point.”

King said last week’s win over Oak Forest helped his team’s confidence going into the season’s final stretch.

“We certainly feel like after last week we got our swagger back so to speak,” he said.

King said Columbia is a young team that is currently in a rebuilding phase this season. He said the Cougars would use a spread attack that features a physical offensive line, and Trinity would have to stay focused this week to avoid dropping a critical district contest.

“One mess up in the district, and that’s the season,” King said.

Trinity (8-1, 1-0) and Columbia (2-7, 1-0) will kick off at 7 p.m. today in Columbia.

ACCS at Brookhaven Academy

ACCS has had its struggles this season. The Rebels have just one win on the year, and their seven losses have been by an average of 29.4 points a game.

But the final two games of the season bring new life to the young Rebel team, and all those tough losses can be erased with two wins to end the season, head coach Hunter McKeivier said.

“We control our own destiny,” he said. “We have two district games left, and if we win both, we would be the No. 2 team out of the district. You can throw out the records right now.”

McKeivier said his team showed a new outlook this week in practice.

“They have a little more of a let’s go out and have fun type attitude,” he said.

ACCS has improved on the defensive side of the ball as the season has moved on, McKeiver said.

“Defensively we’ve really played well, and they’ve kept us in the last two ball games even if the scores don’t show it,” he said. “Our offense has bogged down lately, and that is under my control. I have to find something to spark us.”

McKeivier said one major issue offensively has been with making in-game adjustments. He said the offense has moved the ball well early in games, but defensive adjustments by opposing teams have led to his offense stalling in the second half.

Brookhaven will run a spread offense tonight, and McKeivier said his defense would have to pay close attention to Christian Keene and Landon Nettles for the Cougars.

He said the Brookhaven defense would use a 5-2 formation and a 4-3 formation to try to stop the Rebel attack.

“At times they play real good defense, and if their offense gets going they can make explosive plays,” he said.

In order to win, ACCS will have to focus on not turning the ball over on offense and preventing big plays by making sure they tackle on defense, McKeivier said.

“It would be huge (to win),” he said. “It would get us where we need to be in the playoff picture. We want to show people what we are capable of doing. We just have to show up and play a continuous four quarters.”

ACCS (1-8, 0-1) will travel to Brookhaven (7-2, 1-0) with kickoff scheduled for 7 p.m.