Preview: Gregory-Portland Wildcats vs. Flour Bluff Hornets
The Gregory-Portland Wildcats will head out on the road to face off against the Flour Bluff Hornets at 7:00 p.m. on Friday. Each of these teams will be battling to keep a five-game winning streak alive.
Gregory-Portland stacked a sixth blowout onto their ever-increasing hoard on Friday. They took their match at home with ease, bagging a 58-0 victory over Valley View. Given Gregory-Portland's advantage in MaxPreps' Texas football rankings (they are ranked 296th, while Valley View is ranked 1056th), the result wasn't entirely unexpected.
Gregory-Portland can attribute much of their success to Reed Dooms, who threw for 153 yards and four touchdowns on only ten passes. Gregory-Portland also got a significant boost from Cody Adame, who ran away from the competition to the tune of 84 yards.
Meanwhile, you can't lose the contest if you win every quarter, and that was precisely Flour Bluff's strategy against Porter on Thursday. Given that consistent dominance, it should come as no surprise that Flour Bluff blew Porter out of the water with a 57-0 final score. The matchup was all but wrapped up at the end of the third, by which point Flour Bluff had established a 50 point advantage.
Cameran Dickson and Jayden Paluseo were among the main playmakers for Flour Bluff as the former picked up 73 receiving yards and two touchdowns and the latter threw for 128 yards and three touchdowns while completing 83.3% of his passes. Paluseo is on a roll when it comes to passing touchdowns, as he's now passed for three or more in the last five games he's played.
Gregory-Portland's win was their sixth straight at home (dating back to last season), bumping their overall record up to 8-1. That said, the team wasn't facing the toughest opposition over that stretch, as it included 0-9 Porter and 2-7 Valley View (their opponents had an average overall winning percentage of 39.1% over those games). As for Flour Bluff, their win bumped their record up to 6-2.
Gregory-Portland couldn't quite finish off Flour Bluff in their previous matchup back in November of 2022 and fell 36-34. Can Gregory-Portland avenge their loss or is history doomed to repeat itself? We'll find out soon enough.
