Demopolis head coach Jesse Bell continually encouraged his players to work hard throughout Monday’s practice.

“Value hard work,” the veteran head coach repeated during the session.

The emphasis is one Bell said his group will need to embrace in order to make noise during the upcoming area tournament.

“We’re going to turn it up a notch. We were pretty intense (Monday),” Bell said. “We’ve got to keep it that way.”

His team faces a slate of three games this week, beginning with tonight’s contest against Francis Marion.

“They shoot the three-ball really well. They’re really quick,” Bell said of an athletic, aggressive squad the Tigers have already beaten once this season.

Demopolis will then host Chilton County on Friday night in a game with area implications.

“It’s an area game and you’ve still got to treat it like an area game,” Bell said. “I know it’s going ot be tough to go over and beat them next Friday.”

Demopolis needs to drop Chilton County in order to stay out of the basement of the area and keep the No. 3 seed heading into tournament play.

The Tigers wrap up their week with a Saturday trip to Newbern where they will challenge Sunshine.

“It’d be huge for us because right now we’re 6-6. It’d be great for us to go out and put together four or five ball games in a row,” Bell said. “That’d be huge for us.”