NATCHEZ — The Adams County Christian School football team will finish up its three-game gauntlet against MAIS-AA top 5 teams this week when it hits the road to face Simpson Academy (7-0).

The Rebels lost to Centreville Academy (5-2) last week and Trinity Episcopal (6-1) Sept. 23. Both of those teams are also ranked in the top 5 in Class AA.

ACCS (1-6, 0-1) head coach Hunter McKeivier said this stretch of games against top tier opponents would help prepare his team for its stretch run at the end of the season, especially for its last two games, which are MAIS District 5-AA contests. He said he hopes to see improvement this week against Simpson.

“We need to get healthy,” he said. “The last couple of weeks we had the injury bug. Also, we want to be more competitive and have more of a competitive spirit. We want to compete every snap and work on execution.”

McKeivier said Simpson brings a power running game and sets up the play action pass with its run.

“We’ve been trying to pick up tendencies (in their offense) this week,” McKeivier said. “They run a lot of the same stuff we do.”

McKeivier said winning the turnover battle and controlling the line of scrimmage will be the key factors in the game for the Rebels.

Although ACCS has struggled through the season so far, McKeivier said his team has improved in some aspects of the game.

“Discipline and penalty wise our problems have really gone way down, and that was one of our biggest problems,” he said.

McKeivier said now the Rebels struggles stem from giving up big plays that kill momentum they have established in recent games.

He said he hopes his team will use its final two non-district games to sharpen up its play starting with Simpson this week.

“I would like to see us offensively and defensively be at our best execution wise,” he said. “I want to see us show toughness, which we show at times but sometimes not, and compete every snap.”

The Rebels will make the 2.5-hour trip to Mendenhall for the 7 p.m. kickoff Friday.