Heritage Academy is set to begin its first foray into the new reshuffled MAIS District 2-4A at 7 p.m. today as it hosts East Rankin Academy.
With it comes an opportunity to rebound from a frustrating 31-28 loss last week to Magnolia Heights, in which the Patriots rallied from a 10-7 halftime deficit for a 21-17 lead late in the third quarter, but couldn’t hang on. Magnolia ran in a touchdown just before the beginning of the fourth quarter to pull back ahead and added one more with around four minutes left to play. Heritage punched in a touchdown run with under a minute left, but there just wasn’t enough time left to try to add more points. After an undefeated start to the season, last week’s loss has been the only blight on the Patriots’ (4-1) year so far.
“They are pretty upset about last week,” head coach Tobias Smith said. “We did some stuff that wasn’t characteristic of us, and we had a really good practice this week to get some stuff corrected. I think we are hungry to get back into the win column. … Magnolia Heights is a really good team. They played a really good game. They brought the intensity and they executed and we didn’t.”
After a week of preparation, the team now gets a shot at capturing a district win over ERA, which is a new opponent for Heritage. Not only is East Rankin new to the district, it has only ever played Heritage once before – a 21-17 HA victory in the first round of the 2012 playoffs. This season, though, ERA comes into its second-ever clash with Heritage at 4-2 overall, with its two losses both coming in district games against Starkville Academy (28-13) and Lamar School (34-6). Last week, East Rankin dominated Park Place Academy 42-12 to end its two-game losing streak.
“They are a big, physical team. They like to run the football and control the time of possession,” Smith said. “They are physical. They are big, strong and tough and they run hard. They block well and they are going to be a scrappy bunch like the team we just played. We just have to come out and play our game. If we do, I think we’ll have some success. If we don’t, we’ll be back having this conversation next week.
“They have a couple of guys that run the ball well. They have some pretty big tight ends and the offensive line is a scrappy bunch. They try to finish you off with how hard they play and they come off the football and do it over and over and over.”
Heritage is off to a start similar to its 2024 campaign, during which the Patriots went 4-1 in their first five games but went on to lose five straight games to end 5-6 overall. This year, the team has improved its scoring from an average of 30 points a game to 35.6 while holding its opponents’ offenses to 23.8 points per game, an improvement from last year’s mark of 31.5.
The loss last week offers a chance for Smith and the team to take a step back and look at some things that need to be corrected. Their focus has been on themselves this week.
“I want to get back to running the football and being assignment sound and technique sound in doing things that got us the first few wins. Being able to dominate the line of scrimmage and run the football when we need to, and get the ball to our playmakers on the outside when we have to. … Outside of playing somebody in a different helmet than what we’ve seen already, we just have to make sure we are sound in what we are doing: getting to the football and blocking and finishing blocks.”
So far through Week 6 of the season, Hartfield Academy leads the district with 42.75 MAIS power points, and Lamar School is second with 39.5. Starkville Academy’s 35.75 power points just edges out Heritage’s 35 points for third place, and East Rankin is last with 29.3.
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