NATCHEZ — When the baseball season began, Adams County Christian coach Hunter McKeivier set one of the team’s goals as winning the District 3-3A championship.

With that goal now accomplished, the Rebels will go about trying to accomplish a second, bigger goal — a state title.

ACCS (13-8) won the district championship with an 8-4 district record and will host Simpson Academy in Game 1 of the three-game first round playoff series at 6 p.m. Tuesday.

Game 2 will be Thursday night at Simpson and an if-necessary Game 3 will be Friday back at ACCS.

“We set goals for ourselves and the beginning of the season and goal No. 1 was winning the district championship,” McKeivier said. “I’m extremely proud of the boys. They worked hard, never gave up and kept chipping away at it until it was ours.”

McKeivier said the key to the district title was the team coming together, especially after they lost three players to graduation and another to a transfer.

“When you bring in new starters and new players, the key is to mesh together and work towards one goal,” McKeivier said. “We were able to figure out the strengths and weaknesses of each person and put them in the best spot for each to be successful.”

The Rebels were led this season by a solid one-two combination of Colin Dollar and Jake Brumfield on the mound and good offensive production.

“We’ve had strong pitching and the guys have done a great job of throwing strikes,” McKeivier said. “We have hit the ball a lot better than I would have thought. There would be games where we had 16 or 17 hits.”

ACCS has played Simpson once this season, an 11-10 loss in a spring break tournament, so McKeivier knows the Cougars can hit the ball.

“Simpson has about five or six really good hitters,” McKeivier said. “Anytime you go up against a team like that you’ve got to stay prepared and focused.”

And that is especially important now that the playoffs have started, McKeivier said.

“We’ve prepared all year long for this, and I think the boys are going to be ready,” he said. “I told them if we play our game the way we’re capable of playing it to the best of our abilities, we can be dominant against any team. We always push for that.”