MENDENHALL — Any time a team takes the victory formation, it’s a good feeling, said Adams County Christian School assistant coach Matthew Freeman. But Friday night, a victory formation against (8-2) Simpson Academy sealed a district championship in a 32-27 victory for the Rebels.

“It’s pretty special because Coach (David) King said the school hadn’t won the district championship since 1982, and now, we’ve won it three straight years,” Freeman said.

In order to get in that formation, ACCS had to come up with a big fourth quarter stop. On fourth down in the red zone, with Simpson threatening, Richard Conn recorded an interception before Chisum Mardis broke loose on two first down runs to give ACCS the win.

“He made three defenders miss on one of those runs,” Freeman said.

In the victory, Carlos Woods completed 9 of 20 for 165 yards and four touchdown passes. ACCS receiver George Scott recorded four catches for 81 yards and two touchdowns.

“George played a heck of a game,” King said. “He made some really great catches. Anytime you’re getting covered by three guys and you still make some awesome catches… Simpson was determined to not get beat by the pass tonight.”

Simpson jumped out to a 6-0 lead at the end of the first quarter on a 6-yard run by Kyle Burney. Woods and the Rebels answered with a 21-yard pass to Sam Butler to tie it at 6 before Burney scored on a 69-yard run on the ensuing position. Kyle was one of three Burney triplets the Rebels had to account for.

“I don’t know if you’ve ever played with your brother before, but you’re so in sync,” Freeman said. “They ran a reverse and then faked a reverse using all three of them, and you could tell they knew each other like the back of their hand.”

The Rebels answered in the second quarter with a 7-yard Chisum Mardis touchdown run to take a 14-13 lead into halftime. Mardis finished the game with 11 rushes for 106 yards and a score.

Out of the break, Woods found Scott twice in the third quarter to give ACCS a 32-20 lead going into the fourth.

Simpson scored on an 11-yard run by Landon Herrington before ACCS’ defense forced a turnover late in the game to ice the win.

With the win, ACCS joins Indianola Academy as the only teams left undefeated in MAIS AAA. Freeman believed the Rebels would hold the No. 1 seed in the playoffs based on power points.

“We were all talking about it, and if our math is correct, we were tied heading into this game tonight with Indianola,” Freeman said. “But because Simpson had eight wins and Indianola’s opponent (Kirk Academy) had two, we think we will end of getting the No. 1 seed because that’s six more points.”