Ardmore's Anthony Taylor (4) and Tyler Schrimsher chase down East Limestone's D.J. Davis in a game earlier this season. The Tigers host Lee-Huntsville in an important region game Friday.

Ardmore is entering a stretch of four consecutive Class 5A, Region 8 games, and the Tigers need to win just about all of them in order to secure their first playoff berth since 2013.

But instead of thinking about those games as a group, Ardmore coach Andrew Smith is preaching to his players to take them as they come.

“The next game is the most important one,” Smith said. “We’ve just got to take it one game at a time. That’s the approach we have to have.”

Ardmore’s (2-3, 1-2) first task comes against Lee-Huntsville at home on Friday. The Generals sit 3-2 overall and are 2-1 in region play. Lee boasts a 45-0 win over Russellville and a 35-7 win over East Limestone while losing 23-0 to region leader Brooks. The Generals lost 14-7 to Class 6A Decatur last Friday.

“Lee is a good team that is very athletic and has some speed,” Smith said. “They’re big up front and very run-oriented on offense. We’re going to have to do a good job of playing assignment football. Everybody doing their job is the theme this week. We’ve got to get off blocks and tackle better. That will be the key on Friday night.”

Ardmore suffered a 28-0 loss to Randolph last week in a non-region game, and the Tigers hope lessons learned from that game will help them in this four-week region stretch.

“We’ve got four weeks in a row of region games, so now is where it heats up,” Smith said. “These next four weeks are really important. Just continuing to improve each week is our main goal. Continuing to tackle better and running the ball a bit more is what we have to do in the second half (of the season) to be successful.”