Winning the 2014 MAIS eight-man championship hasn’t seemed as much like a dream for Sharkey-Issaquena as it has an inevitability.

Almost from the moment they walked off the field at Mississippi College with their first trophy last season, the Confederates started planning a return trip. They were aware of all the potential and challenges they’d face and handled them all without any trouble. Only one step is left now in cementing their status as a team for the ages — beating Tallulah Academy on Saturday morning for their second straight undefeated season and state title.

“In a sense, we haven’t relaxed since last year,” SIA coach Hunter McIntire said. “Especially if we win, it’ll be a chance to celebrate. There would be a hole if we lost, but we’ve done some great things the last few years.”

SIA (13-0) is going into the championship game as the reigning champion and juggernaut of the Mississippi Association of Independent Schools’ eight-man division. This is its third championship appearance in four seasons — it lost to Tensas Academy in 2011 — and riding a 27-game winning streak. The streak actually grows to 34 games if a 2012 playoff loss to Russell Christian that was later ruled a forfeit is factored in.

For all of their accomplishments, however, there’s also a sense of unfinished business. Although the eight-man division wasn’t created until 2007, a second championship would vault SIA into the conversation of the classification’s best-ever programs. Only Calvary Christian, which won in 2008 and 2009, has won back-to-back titles.

“It’s a humbling thing to even be considered in the conversation of greatest to ever play anything,” McIntire said. “But our focus has been on this game on Saturday. Once we get through, it’s going to be time to look back at everything.”

That includes the careers of six seniors who will play their last game on Saturday. Victor Villareal, Jack Martin, Austin Steed, Weston Joiner, Cooper Anthony and Tucker Clinkscales have played football together since they were in fifth grade. Since moving up to the varsity level in 2011, they’ve led SIA to a 44-7 record.

A big part of the team’s success, they said, is the friendship they share. Whether it’s a Saturday trip to Starkville to watch Mississippi State play, or just a day together on the deer stand, they’ve forged a bond over the past decade that goes well beyond football.

“We’re very close on and off the field. We’re literally like brothers,” said Martin, the quarterback who has thrown for 3,512 yards and 57 touchdowns over the past two seasons. “We’re always doing something together. Very tight-knit.”

At Monday’s MAIS championship press conference in Jackson, the friendship and relaxed attitude of the Confederates was on full display. Joiner was cracking one-liners as he tried to come up with a poignant quote. Martin and Villareal shared stories of their high school days, while poking fun at the quiet Steed for not speaking up.

“We’re not very high on ourselves,” Martin laughed. “We’re confident, but not cocky. We love to win.”

The jovial lunch early in the week stood in stark contrast to the role SIA will play in Saturday’s championship game. Its opponent, Tallulah Academy (9-1), is trying to complete a worst-to-first journey to the state title. Tallulah won one game as an 11-man program last season, then switched to eight-man in the spring and has made a stunning run to the brink of a championship.

To win their second, the Confederates will have to be the ultimate villain in Tallulah’s Cinderella season. McIntire downplayed that aspect of the matchup, but said it was a role his team embraced. Tallulah’s job, after all, is to ruin SIA’s own happy ending.

“We’ve been in that position. We started at the bottom. We know where they’re coming from,” said McIntire, noting that SIA won four games from 2007-10. “We’re not concerned with their storyline. We’re concerned with ours.”