Football Preview: Basha Bears vs. ALA - Queen Creek Patriots
The Basha Bears will face off against the ALA - Queen Creek Patriots at 6:00 p.m. on Saturday. Both teams are coming into the match red-hot, with Basha sitting on seven straight wins and ALA - Queen Creek on four.
Basha is on a roll after a high-stakes playoff matchup on Friday. Everything went their way against Horizon as Basha made off with a 36-14 victory. The Bears might be getting used to big wins seeing as the team has won six contests by 20 points or more this season.
The match pitted two dominant signal callers against one another in Broderick Vehrs and Jase Ashley. Vehrs had a great game and threw for 181 yards and two touchdowns while completing 78.9% of his passes. Meanwhile, Ashley was balling out in the loss, rushing for 86 yards and a touchdown on only nine carries, while also throwing for 218 yards on 16 of 29 attempts.
Meanwhile, ALA - Queen Creek faced Desert Mountain in a battle between two of the state's top teams on Friday. ALA - Queen Creek managed a 20-14 win over Desert Mountain.
It was another big night for Brandon Brown, who rushed for 106 yards and two touchdowns, and also picked up 31 receiving yards. His rushing production has been exceptional recently as that marked his third straight game with at least 105 rushing yards. Britt Dewitt was another key player, throwing for 295 yards and a touchdown.
Another reason for the win was ALA - Queen Creek's imposing defense, which managed to get into the backfield for 4.5 sacks. Desert Mountain's QB won't forget Ryder Agne anytime soon given he sacked him twice. ALA - Queen Creek got some further help from Brody Michael: he picked up a sack and made eight total tackles (2.0 for loss).
Basha's victory was their 11th straight at home dating back to last season, which pushed their record up to 10-1. Those good results were due in large part to their offensive performance across that stretch, as they averaged 42.0 points per game. As for ALA - Queen Creek, their win bumped their record up to 10-1.
Basha was able to grind out a solid victory over ALA - Queen Creek in their previous meeting back in November of 2023, winning 38-31. One of the biggest obstacles trying to stand in the way of that victory was ALA - Queen Creek's Enoch Watson, who rushed for 65 yards and a touchdown, and also threw for 131 yards and a touchdown. Now that he won't be playing on Saturday, will it be easier for Basha to walk away with another win? There's only one way to find out.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
