NATCHEZ — Last season’s game between Trinity Episcopal and Adams County Christian quickly turned into a blowout with the Saints outgaining the Rebels by over 300 yards and winning 47-0.

Trinity coach David King has so much faith in his team that he thinks it could happen again.

“This is a very difficult game for me because of all the expectations of our fans and their fans,” King said. “I don’t know what will happen, but all I know that my boys want to play four quarters of Trinity football.

“We respect (ACCS coach) Paul Hayles coaching ability, but I’ve got kids that work their tails off all year long and we have a very, very diverse offense and we score points very quickly and our second team scores very quickly too.”

Hayles said that it will be very difficult to defeat the Saints, who are coming off a 30-13 win over South Choctaw (Ala.) last week, but he expects better effort out of his team than he got last year.

“This is one of the years where (Trinity) has one of the best teams around,” Hayles said. “We plan on going in and playing our absolute best and do what we can do. It won’t be easy and anyone thinking that way is very foolish. We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us.”

Hayles said the biggest problem his team will face is handling the speed of the Trinity offense.

“We’ve got to have solid play out of our defensive ends and make the plays we didn’t make last week,” Hayles said. “We’re going to see arguably the fastest top to bottom team on our schedule and they use that speed well. We’ve got to find a way to negate that.”

King said that his offense relies on the big play abilities of several different players, and they will look to use that to their advantage tonight.

“I’ve got about five guys that can score,” King said. “That is our game plan every year. We want to get a lot of kids skill level up to where they can do a lot of things. Fortunately for us, we have kids that buy into that and can do things with the football when they get it.”

While the game is one the fans of both teams really want to win, Hayles and King say the game doesn’t affect their friendship in any way.

“Paul Hayles is one of my best friends in the coaching profession,” King said. “I have a lot of respect for him and for the AC program.”

Hayles said the coaches want to beat each other, but once it’s over, they’ll shake hands and congratulate the other.

“Coach King and I have been friends since high school and will be friends until long after we’ve finished coaching,” Hayles said. “Sure we want to win, but we’ll say good luck to each other during the week and shake hands after the game.”