VALDOSTA — A season ago, the Houston County Bears came to Martin Stadium and took it to the Lowndes High football team.

This year’s version of Houston County isn’t the same team from the Bears’ squad that won 31-14 last year, but don’t tell Lowndes that.

“They beat us by three touchdowns last year,” Lowndes coach Randy McPherson said. “You can’t overlook somebody that whooped you on your home field last year.”

Lowndes (4-1, 1-0 in Region 1-AAAAA) will seek revenge today when it travels to Houston (1-4, 0-1) for a 7:30 p.m. Region 1-AAAAA showdown.

A year ago, the Bears handed Lowndes its first 1-AAAAA loss in two years, putting together 313 rushing yards. However, in today’s matchup, All-State running back Eric O’Neal, who led the Bears with 136 yards against Lowndes a year ago, has moved on to college football.

O’Neal isn’t the only loss from Houston County’s 8-5 playoff reaching squad. The Bears graduated 34 lettermen, including nearly all of their starters, and have a new head coach in former defensive coordinator George Collins.

“They’ll run the same stuff they ran last year,” McPherson said. “We’re going to have to play well.”

The Vikings have played their best football the last two weeks, defeating Central Gwinnett 42-0 and Coffee 42-13.

Lowndes has been dominating teams, rushing for 355 yards against Coffee, while holding the state’s then-No. 2 ranked team to 251 total yards.

However, the one aspect of the Vikings game that could use improvement is turnovers.

In Lowndes’ first three games, it turned the ball over 11 times, and then coughed it up three more times against the Trojans.

The Vikings continued to strive for turnover perfection this week and practice, and will keep it their goal today.

“I really believe turnovers are a mental thing,” McPherson said. “We’ve been stressing protecting the football since day one.

“Our goal is to not turn it over one time. That’s our goal.”

Lowndes has this last opportunity to limit turnovers and tune up the offensive and defensive sides of the ball before a region showdown with Valdosta.