One team will look to win a district championship for the first time in over a decade while the other hopes to keep its post-season hopes alive as North Delta closes out the regular season by visiting No.4 ranked Indianola tonight in a 7 p.m. kickoff.

Both teams claimed big district wins last week as North Delta hammered Winona 37-7 while Indianola eased past Kirk 40-6 in Grenada.

Green Wave head coach Brandon Ciaramitaro feels his club is in a must-win situation to make the 16-team playoffs set to began next Friday. 

“We have sat down and done the math so to speak and figured out we pretty much have to win tonight to make the playoffs, said Ciaramitaro.

“Indianola has got a very good ball team and as always are very well coached. They have one of the top running backs in Class AA in No. 2 (Ashton Knight) but they also have three or four other guys that run the ball. They run the ball about 85 percent of the time and are very solid defensively,” said Ciaramitaro.

The Colonels enter tonight’s contest  sporting an 8-1 overall, 4-0 district record. A victory tonight would give Indianola its first district championship since 2001. A win by North Delta however would leave a three-way tie between the two squads and Lee Academy, who will take on Kirk tonight.

Indianola’s only blemish  of the year came in a 14-7 loss to Oak Hill in which the Colonels turned the ball over five times.

Junior quarterback Jonathan Holland directs the Colonel offense. Knight, who was voted the District 1-AA offensive player-of-the-year, has rushed for 1,208 yards and 16 touchdowns on the season which included 195 yards and two touchdowns in the victory over Kirk.

Junior running back Wheeler Timbs is second on the team in rushing with 512 yards while senior running back/linebacker Dalton Sykes is third with 488 yards and six touchdowns on the campaign.

North Delta meanwhile will look to have success much like it did in last week’s victory over Winona as the offense rolled up 346 yards rushing and 455 yards total offense.

Chase Coker caught a pair of touchdowns from quarterback Hays Hudson while Hunter Baker ran for 146 yards on 11 carries and one touchdown. Hudson also ran for two scores and accounted for 196 all-purpose yards on the night.

The North Delta defense was equally impressive by forcing five turnovers including a season-high four interceptions. 

District defensive MVP Parker Jones leads a defensive unit that held the Stars to nine yards rushing and six first downs on the night.