Red Level coach Tony Ingram said Thursday that it’s going to be a “tough” matchup this week as his team travels to play region powerhouse Leroy tonight.

“They’ve won the last three state Class 2A titles,” Ingram said. “They just win and win. That’s what they do and they expect to win. They have that tradition and that’s what we’re after. That’s what we want to try to build here.”

The “winning” tradition for Leroy (6-1, 5-0 in Class 2A, Region 1) is true, but this season the Bears suffered a 27-13 loss to Class 4A Jackson on Sept. 25.

For Red Level (2-5, 0-5), preparation for tonight’s game has been good, Ingram said.

“Dodging the rain, we’ve just went at it at practice,” he said. “Physically on Tuesday, we lined up ‘Oklahoma three-on-three’ and just went at it. It was probably the best practice this year.”

Last week, the Tigers lost to Mobile Christian, 41-15.

Ingram said the keys to the game tonight will be similar to what his team did against Washington County two weeks ago.

“We’ve got to execute on offense,” Ingram said. “I thought we had turned the corner against Washington County two weeks ago, but I think we put it in reverse and backed up last week against Mobile Christian.

“We could not execute anything offensively,” he said. “I know it sounds like a broken record, but we’ve got to sustain drives on offense and get some first downs and move some chains.”

As the season is winding down for Red Level, Ingram said the focus right now is to “finish” in every aspect of the game.

“We want to finish every game,” he said. “We want to finish every play. That’s always been kind of our motto here.

“We want to finish the season strong,” he said. “I still believe we can do that. I think we’re capable of playing anybody on our schedule, but it’s got to be virtually mistake-free for us.”

Kickoff in Leroy is at 7 p.m.