Sean Harrison doesn’t want his Heritage Academy football team to be known as the “comeback kids.”

Instead, the school’s first-year head coach would prefer the Patriots to start games faster so he and they can rest a little easier in the fourth quarter.

Harrison hopes Heritage Academy uses what it learned last week against West Lowndes to use at 7 tonight when it takes on Winston Academy in a Mississippi Association of Independent Schools (MAIS) Class AAA, Division 2 game in Louisville.

“West Lowndes came to play and played really hard and really well. We didn’t,” Harrison said. “Defensively we did. We had a couple of busts in pass coverage, but otherwise we really shut down their run game. Offensively, they whipped us up front and we didn’t do well in the passing game. Dontae (Gray) had a couple of good runs, but we just couldn’t get it rolling. I thought we came out flat, but they are a mature group. Down two cores in the fourth quarter, it didn’t faze them.”

Heritage Academy’s 30-26 victory against West Lowndes helped it improve to 6-1. The Mississippi High School Activities Association (MHSAA)-MAIS matchup didn’t affect the Patriots’ district record. At 1-0, Heritage Academy has a chance to improve its playoff chances with a victory. Leake Academy (1-0 district) and Starkville Academy (0-1) also play tonight, so the fight for the district title should be a little clearer Saturday.

In order to be in a position to win the district, Harrison hopes the Patriots can feed off the momentum senior quarterback Tyler Anderson brought to the offense in leading the comeback. Harrison didn’t feel the Patriots changed into a different team in the fourth quarter. He said the biggest difference was the team found a way to finish drives after moving the football well all evening.

Buoyed by a strong defensive effort, Heritage Academy shut West Lowndes down in the fourth quarter. Now, Harrison hopes to see a focused effort on both sides of the ball against Winston Academy (3-4, 0-1), which he expects to have good size and plenty of weapons.

“Sunday wasn’t a good day,” Harrison said. “Watching film, we didn’t play well. We have been living on this string of coming out flat and not jumping on people like we should. That is something we have got to fix, especially moving into this stretch and, hopefully, the playoffs. We can’t keep living on this idea that it doesn’t matter what happens, we’ll win it in the fourth quarter because that isn’t always going to be the case.”

Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor

Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.