Bowling Green is back in action tonight, traveling to face Oak Forest Academy, which is located in Amite, and battle the Yellow Jackets.

Both teams played in lopsided games last week with different results.

The Buccaneers lost their opening contest, 36-7, against Columbia Academy. Oak Forest downed Silliman Institute, 30-6.

The two met last year with the Yellow Jackets coming away with a 27-12 victory.

Bowling Green first-year coach David Currier said that the Bucs are probably playing the best team on their schedule.

“We’ve got a young team that’s improving every week,” Currier said. “They have 15 seniors and are experienced and they beat a good Silliman team. We need to eliminate our turnover ratio and mistakes and hang on to the football.”

Bowling Green will be playing without Matt Pierce, who is out with a concussion.

Pierce plays both offense and defense for the Buccaneers.

Pierce scored the Bucs only touchdown last week when he caught an eight-yard TD pass from quarterback Brady Goings, who had 42 passing yards with the TD and two interceptions.

Cody Wilhite led the Bucs in running the ball with 32 yards on five carries with Grant Alexander putting up 28 yards on seven attempts.

Currier said Drake Spears, Levi Tarver, Jacob Brumfield and Brandon McElveen need to step up and have a big game for the Bucs. Currier credited Spears with being able to go both ways for all four quarters in last week’s contest.

Switching over to Oak Forest where despite the score of last week’s game, Yellow Jackets coach Jason Brabham said they’ve got a lot of corrections to make from the game against Silliman.

“We should’ve scored more points than we did,” Brabham said. “We didn’t get our receivers in the best positions to catch passes. We had a lot of mistakes. The measure of a team is how they improve from one week to another.”

Oak Forest lost its kicker Ivy Wall to a fractured femur last week. Brabham said Wall, who has verbally committed to University of Alabama at Birmingham, could be missed for the rest of the season.

Wall’s injury occurred when he was on Oak Forest’s punt return team due to injuries. He suffered the injury when he was attempting to recover an Oak Forest fumble early in the third quarter.

Wall handles all of the team’s kicking duties and he plays defensive back.

Coach Brabham said Wall averaged 42 yards per punt last season, but his biggest strength is his ability to get good hang time on his punts, which Brabham said is about five seconds.

Last week, Wall recorded three touchbacks on kickoffs and defensive, he made three tackles with an interception.

Offensively, the Yellow Jackets are a shotgun/spread team with Tyler Hasson at quarterback. Last week, Hasson rushed for a touchdown and a 2-point conversion.

Running back Collin Kent ran for two scores, while Kaylin Stewart had one. Wide receiver Bransen Schwebel completed a pass to Conner Alston for a 2-point conversion.

Defensively, Oak Forest runs a 4-3. Coach Brabham feels his front seven is the strength on defense.

He named tackles Chris Carter and Travis Shaw, end Bradley Brumfield and linebacker Garrett Jones as his top defenders.

Bowling Green returns home after this contest to face Wilkerson Christian School Academy Sept. 5.