Football Preview: Taylor Wildcats vs. Cocoa Beach Minutemen
The Taylor Wildcats will take on the Cocoa Beach Minutemen at 7:00 p.m. on Friday. Hopefully Taylor focused on turnovers this week as the team gave up five on Thursday.
Taylor is headed into the game out to prove that what happened against Crescent City on Thursday (when they were outscored in every quarter) was just a minor bump in the road. Taylor was beaten by Crescent City 49-6. The loss continues a trend for the Wildcats in their matchups with the Raiders: they've now lost four in a row.
Meanwhile, winning is always nice, but doing so behind a season-high score is even better (just ask Cocoa Beach). They blew past Faith Christian 38-16 on Friday. The victory was a breath of fresh air for the Minutemen as it put an end to their five-game losing streak.
Aaron Garber was nothing short of spectacular: he rushed for 135 yards and three touchdowns on only 11 carries, and also picked up 72 receiving yards. That's the most rushing yards he has posted since back in November of 2023. Another player making a difference was Remy Vigne, who threw for 253 yards and a touchdown.
Cocoa Beach was unstoppable on the ground and finished the game with 248 rushing yards. That's a new trend for them: they were averaging 91.5 rushing yards per game earlier this season, but in their last three matchups they've averaged 159.7.
Cocoa Beach's defense made their presence known, laying out the QB five times. Leading the way was Nathan Pond with two sacks.
Taylor's defeat dropped their record down to 2-5. As for Cocoa Beach, their win ended a three-game drought at home and bumped them up to 3-6.
Taylor was dealt a bruising 36-6 loss at the hands of Cocoa Beach when the teams last played back in September of 2023. That contest was all but decided by halftime, at which point Taylor was down 28-0.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
