CLINTON — Over the past two seasons, two traditions have taken root at Sharkey-Issaquena Academy.

In the first, the team gets together each November to celebrate winning the MAIS eight-man championship. In the second, by the time the returning players have reached the locker room they’ve already stopped celebrating and turned their attention toward doing it again.

SIA claimed its second consecutive eight-man title on Saturday with an impressive 82-42 rout of Tallulah Academy. It marked the end of a second straight undefeated season as well as the start of the road toward a third.

“It’s kind of melancholic. Twelve-point word,” senior lineman Weston Joiner said with a smile. “It’s great, but definitely kind of sad. I liked worrying about it. It was pretty fun.”

SIA’s next title defense should be a little bit tougher than this one. Led by six senior starters who returned from the 2013 championship team, the Confederates scored 756 points and held 10 of their 14 opponents to 14 points or less. They scored 95 touchdowns, including 11 in the championship game.

Perhaps more than the production of his seniors, coach Hunter McIntire said their leadership will be missed. This senior class brought the program from a laughingstock in its final days of 11-man football to perhaps the best two-year run in the brief history of the MAIS’ eight-man division.

SIA played in three state championship games in their four years, won two, and finished with a 46-6 record.

“They’re going to be remembered as one of the best teams to play for Sharkey, for sure. They’ve earned it. They’ve put the hard work in. They got the opportunity to go to eight-man, and once it happened they took to it and it’s shot out like a cannon ever since,” McIntire said.

SIA still has plenty of weapons returning, though. Junior Cole Delaney ran for 117 yards and two touchdowns in Saturday’s game, and Austin Herraney scored nine touchdowns this season. Both will step into more prominent roles in 2015 as they try to carry on the school’s winning ways.

“The good thing about it is, they’ve put the impression on the younger guys. They’ve taught them how to lead, they’ve taught them how to work through stuff that they’re not used to working through. So I have a real good feeling that my juniors are going to step up,” McIntire said. “I promise you, their goal is to get right back here. We know how special this opportunity was. We don’t want to overlook that at all. But we know what kind of work it’s going to take to get back next year, and it’s going to be even harder.”

SIA isn’t the only team that will have to retool to make another run at a championship. Tallulah Academy will lose four seniors — including leading rusher Zach Boney and top lineman Parks Watson — and its coach. Justin Bigham, who took over in midseason after his father Greg resigned, said after Saturday’s game that he is leaving the school at the end of the semester.

“It’s my first go at it and I have a lot invested in the kids. The only reason I was here was because I love them to death,” Bigham said. “It’ll be hard to leave.”

Tallulah might be in a good spot to pick up where it left off, though. Quarterback Mason Todd threw for 1,897 yards and 33 touchdowns this season and will be back for his senior year. Running back Ryan Hodge, who had 1,201 yards and 18 TDs on the ground, will be a junior.

Todd and receiver Dakota Cone will be the Trojans’ only seniors next season, meaning they could be in line for more than just this one memorable season.

“We need to gain a couple more. We lose four seniors, but we don’t gain hardly any. We keep all of a big sophomore class. They’ve got a good group of good kids that really play well together,” Bigham said. “You made it this far, obviously you want to win, but it’s a long ways from where they were.”