As the regular season wraps up this week, the Andalusia Bulldogs and the Straughn Tigers prepare for their cross-county rivalry tilt tonight at Straughn High School.

Andalusia comes into the game with an eight-game win streak and has been the top-ranked team in Class 4A for the past five weeks.

“We are excited about getting a chance to play the No. 1 team in 4A,” Straughn head coach John Higgins said. “We better be ready to play a football game, and just approach this game as an opportunity in end the season on positive note. These kids look forward to the challenge.”

Despite Straughn’s record, Andalusia head coach Trent Taylor said that the Tigers aren’t a team that you can take lightly.

“I think the biggest thing that jumps out when you see them on film is how hard those kids play on both sides of the ball,” Taylor said. “The season probably hasn’t gone how they would have liked it, but credit those kids and coaches because they are still getting after it every game.”

Taylor said last week’s bye came at a good time for the Bulldogs.

“The open week was great,” Taylor said. “It allowed us to back away from focusing and a team’s game plan, and just work on some areas that we felt we needed to improve. The kids came in and did a good job of that. We gave them off day on Monday and Friday, but we still had three great days of practice.”

As for Straughn, Higgins hopes to see a better effort than he did a week ago against Slocomb.

“There are been three or four games this year that we played hard and felt like we could have won the game,” Higgins said. “That wasn’t the case against Slocomb. I was disappointed in the way we played and the way we coached.”

Higgins said he feels like he will get a strong effort for all of the Tigers tonight against Andalusia.

“We worked a lot this week on cleaning up some of the mental mistakes that have been causing a lot of negative things,” Higgins said. “The kids are excited about the chance to play Andalusia. I have a lot of respect for the things that Trent (Taylor) has done in the past and is currently doing. We are looking at this game as David versus Goliath. They are the big dogs and we want to try and knock them off. They are a great team and for that to happen we are going to have to play the best game we have played all year.”

Taylor said he hopes the playoff-type atmosphere will help the Bulldogs prepare for the postseason.

“Playing a game at Straughn’s stadium is very unique,” Taylor said. “The fans are right there on top of you and it creates a great and heightened atmosphere. We are a week away from playoffs so it’s going to be good to be in the type of atmosphere.”