If the Battlefield boys basketball team wishes to make it back to the regional tournament for the fourth year in a row, then now is the time start rallying.

The Bobcats enter their home contest against top-ranked Osbourn this Friday above .500 at 8-7, according to Max Preps. However, the problem is that three of those losses and only one win came against Cedar Run District opponents. That has Battlefield stuck in fourth place at a time when the fifth place team misses out on the district tournament and the fourth place team will likely have to face Osbourn (16-1 overall, 4-0 district) on the road in Manassas in the first round.

With four more Cedar Run games to go, one each against Osbourn (Jan. 28), Heritage (Feb. 4), Loudoun Valley (Feb. 8) and Stonewall Jackson (Jan. 11) along with two more non-district games, Battlefield's entire post-season hangs in the balance during the next two weeks. The Bobcats essentially control their own destiny as winning out, or even just taking three out of four district games, would likely assure them a playoff spot as a No. 2 or No. 3 seed behind the Eagles.

"We will be playing our best basketball the first week in February," said BHS coach Al Ford on Monday, days after his team split a weekend series against Stonewall and Woodbridge.

The Raiders beat Battlefield a 35-33 match on a buzzer-beating shot Friday in a fashion similar to what the Bobcats once did to Stonewall a couple years ago. Yet the Bobcats rebounded the next day to take out the Vikings 44-32 in Woodbridge thanks in part to a big performance by the Class of 2013.

Sophomore guard Tarik Diggs sank three 3-pointers and led all scorers with 13 points while his classmates Terrell Walker and Roman Hall chipped in 10 points and 9 points respectively. Their scoring total alone matched Woodbridge's entire offensive output for the night and outpaced the Vikings' top three scorers 32-23.

"(They're) starting to come along in the second half" of the season, Ford said about his sophomore crew. He mentioned that Hall also put up three triples in one game against Loudoun Valley and is one of Battlefield's leading 3-point shooters on the season in his roles as both a shooting guard and backup to senior captain Kyle Ferraiuolo.

Ford explained that he's counting on strong showings from a couple new players down the stretch, including Ernest Gyimah and transfer student Mike Jorgenson.

In his role filling in for injured senior forward Ryan Dandrea, Gyimah has "just come in with a lot of energy" during his three appearances on the court, said Ford. The senior led the team in rebounds this past weekend and is "one of our leading hustle guys in the post," according to the coach. At 6-foot-2, he is "like a defensive end in football," Ford added, saying that, "We just discovered that he's an exceptionally hard worker and he wants it."

Jorgenson, like Gyimah, plays power forward in Battlefield's "Monster" defensive set up, a mainstay at Battlefield under Ford. Jerguson and Allaire generally each act as the "Monster" man whose job is to rove the floor and attack the ball while the defensive unit as a whole plays a zone setup.

A crew of post-players, including Trent Diggs, JD Robinson and Matt Petry, are assigned with being the defensive wall that forces lower-percentage distance shots rather than allowing opponents to drive into the paint.

Against Heritage, Diggs recorded three blocks in one quarter and "changed" two other shots, Ford said, meaning that he forced shooters to adjust their ultimately unsuccessful attempts on the basket. Doing so helped reverse the momentum Heritage built up by leading at half time as the game ended with a 62-56 Battlefield victory.

Robinson and Petry meanwhile offer Battlefield a size advantage as both players are about 6-foot-4, the same height as senior forward Kevin Bonsu, who's recorded over 100 points for Battlefield this season. That gives Ford the option to play a jumbo-sized package on a team that also features 6-foot-3 players Allaire, Walker and Trent Diggs.

Against Osbourn on Friday, Battlefield's bigs will be force to confront the high-potency offense that led the Eagles to a 81-47 thrashing over the Bobcats Jan. 7. The 34-point margin of victory to date is the third-most lopsided Osbourn win of the season.

Throughout the season, Ford has repeatedly referenced the star-studded Eagles as the "mountain top" in the district. There should be intangible factors working in Battlefield's favor on Friday as the game will be in Haymarket and immediately follows a celebration for the school's state-winning championship football team. Both teams will enter well-rested, having had six days between their last games.

"We want to shock the world and at least shock our district and beat Osbourn," said Ford.

Even if Battlefield comes up short, it only takes a second-place finish in the district tournament to secure a trip to regions, assuming Osbourn wins the regular season and tournament championships. Given that Battlefield is only one game up on Heritage and is only one game behind each Stonewall and Loudoun Valley, anything can happen during the last two weeks to shake up the 2-5 spots within the district entering the playoffs. After all, Battlefield could easily be 3-1 in the district instead of 1-3 had the Bobcats been on the opposite side of 2-point losses to both the Vikings and Raiders.

"We have put ourselves in a hole" with three district losses, said Ford. However, he added, "We feel we do have our best formula of the year right now."