Football Preview: Ainsworth Bulldogs vs. St. Mary's Cardinals
The Ainsworth Bulldogs will head out to face off against the St. Mary's Cardinals at 2:30 p.m. on Friday. One thing working in Ainsworth's favor is that they have posted at least 31 points every time they've taken the field this season.
Ainsworth took a loss when they played away from home two weeks ago, but their home fans gave them all the motivation they needed on Friday. They took their game at home with ease, bagging a 50-6 win over Neligh-Oakdale. The Bulldogs pushed the score to 34-0 by the end of the third, a deficit the Warriors had no chance of recovering from.
Ainsworth relied on the efforts of Morgan Kinney, who gained 190 total yards and four touchdowns, and Chris Fernandez, who threw for 228 yards and three touchdowns while completing 82.6% of his passes.
Ainsworth's defense stepped up as well, laying out Cooper Arehart. five times. The heavy lifting was done by Witten Painter and Aiden Jackman, who racked up four sacks between them.
Meanwhile, St. Mary's entered their match against Creighton on Friday without any home losses, but there's a first time for everything. The matchup between St. Mary's and Creighton wasn't particularly close, with St. Mary's falling 68-52. Despite running the score up even higher than they did in their prior game two weeks ago (38), the Cardinals still had to take the loss.
Despite the loss, St. Mary's got top-tier performance from Gage Hedstrom, who rushed for 220 yards and four touchdowns while picking up 8.1 yards per carry, and also threw for 127 yards and two touchdowns. The dominant performance gave Hedstrom a new career-high in rushing yards. Ben Barlow was in the mix too, providing St. Mary's with two touchdowns.
Even though they lost, St. Mary's was unstoppable on the ground and finished the game with 254 rushing yards. That strong performance was nothing new for the team: they've now rushed for at least 156 rushing yards in four consecutive contests.
The victory snapped Ainsworth's losing streak at four games dating back to last season and leaves them with a 1-3 record. As for St. Mary's, their defeat dropped their record down to 2-2.
Everything came up roses for Ainsworth against St. Mary's when the teams last played back in October of 2023, as the squad secured a 64-6 win. In that game, Ainsworth amassed a halftime lead of 50-0, an impressive feat they'll look to repeat on Friday.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
