NATCHEZ — While Cathedral students and fans might be excited about facing off against a big rival in St. Aloysius tonight, coach Craig Beesley said he is not focused on that.

“What’s more important than the rivalry is the fact that it’s a big district game for both teams,” Beesley said. “We don’t play up the rivalry too much. The fans and students look at the rivalry bigger than we do.”

Not only is this a game against their rivals, it is homecoming week, which can be a distraction for the football team.

However, Beesley said his team has adapted well to all the fanfare this week.

“It’s always a distraction with the extra activities going on during the week,” Beesley said. “But we’ve held ourselves together pretty well with all the distractions.”

What will be much more distracting than homecoming festivities to the Green Wave is St. Aloysius’ unique offense, which alternates between the spread and power-I formations on any given play.

“They interchange formations play by play,” Beesley said. “It’s not like one series they run spread and the other, they run from a power set. That will put us in a bind defensively to recognize the formations they are in.”

Beesley said it will take extreme focus by his defense to stop the Flashes’ offense, which can be difficult since most Green Wave players play on both the offensive and defensive side of the football.

“It’s tough on our kids to completely focus on what the other team is doing because they are worn down playing both ways,” Beesley said. “We watch a lot of film and look for certain tendencies they have to run out of certain formations.”

While the St Al offense will be tough to stop, the Flashes defense is also going to be a bear to face, Beesley said.

“They put a lot of pressure on you on defense,” he said. “They are very aggressive. I hope we can sustain some drives and get some points early. It will be tough to exclusively run or pass against them. We’ll have to mix it up and take care of the football.”

This is the first game of a difficult stretch for the Green Wave.

Following tonight’s rivalry game, Cathedral will play four consecutive games against teams that made the playoffs last year. Those four teams — Bogue Chitto, Mount Olive, Stringer and Puckett — had a combined 2007 record of 38-11.

“We have the mindset that whoever we’re playing the next game is the toughest game,” Beesley said. “We always look forward to next Friday. (Today’s) game will be the toughest for this year and as we continue on down the line, all of them are going to be tough.”