Football Preview: Santa Barbara Dons vs. Newbury Park Panthers
Two dominant signal callers in Laird Finkel and Brady Smigiel are getting ready to go toe-to-toe. The Santa Barbara Dons will be playing at home against the Newbury Park Panthers at 7:00 p.m. on Saturday. The two teams have allowed few points on average, (Santa Barbara: 16.2, Newbury Park: 10.6) so any points scored will be well earned.
Santa Barbara is probably headed into the matchup with a chip on their shoulder considering San Marcos just ended the team's four-game winning streak two weeks ago. Both finished up on equal footing with a 20-20 draw. The match marked the Dons' lowest-scoring game so far this season.
Meanwhile, Newbury Park put another one in the bag on Thursday to keep their perfect season alive. They claimed a resounding 43-14 win over Ventura on the road. Fans of the Panthers have seen this all before: every one of the games they've played this season has ended in a blowout of 20+ points.
A big part of Newbury Park's victory came down to the chemistry between Smigiel and his top target Shane Rosenthal. Smigiel threw for 287 yards and five touchdowns while Rosenthal picked up 166 receiving yards and three touchdowns. With that strong performance, Rosenthal is now averaging an impressive 104.2 receiving yards per game.
On the defensive side of the ball, a lot of the credit has to go to Newbury Park's defense and their four sacks. Blake Bryce was particularly dangerous to the passing game, picking up threehimself.
With that tie, Santa Barbara's record moves to 4-0-1. As for Newbury Park, their win bumped their record up to 5-0.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
