Football Preview: New Hanover Wildcats vs. Pinecrest Patriots
The New Hanover Wildcats will head out to square off against the Pinecrest Patriots at 7:00 p.m. on Friday. Both squads will be entering this one on the heels of a big victory.
New Hanover is headed in fresh off scoring the most points they have all season. They claimed a resounding 45-7 victory over South Brunswick. Given the Wildcats' advantage in MaxPreps' North Carolina football rankings (they are ranked 99th, while the Cougars are ranked 287th), the result on Thursday wasn't entirely unexpected.
It was another big night for Jacob Monroe, who threw for 201 yards and two touchdowns while completing 82.4% of his passes. New Hanover also got a significant boost from Marqueze Higgins, who ran away from the competition to the tune of 104 yards.
New Hanover was unstoppable on the ground and finished the game with 233 rushing yards. That's the most rushing yards they've posted since back in November of 2023.
Meanwhile, Pinecrest had already won four in a row (a stretch where they outscored their opponents by an average of 18.5 points) and they went ahead and made it five last Friday. They breezed by the Vikings to the tune of 57-7. The game was all but wrapped up at the end of the third, by which point the Patriots had established a 44 point advantage.
Zymire Spencer continued his habit of posting crazy stat lines, rushing for 284 yards and four touchdowns on only 14 carries. His rushing production has been exceptional as that marked his eighth straight game with at least 127 rushing yards. Jayden Kounkel was another key player, rushing for 70 yards and a touchdown on only six carries.
New Hanover's record is now 6-4. As for Pinecrest, their record now sits at 9-1.
New Hanover and Pinecrest were neck-and-neck in their previous meeting back in September, but New Hanover came up empty-handed after a 28-27 loss. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of Spencer, who rushed for 138 yards and two touchdowns while picking up 8.1 yards per carry. Now that New Hanover knows the damage he can cause, will they be able to stop him this time? Check MaxPreps.com after the match to find out.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
