Football Preview: El Modena Vanguards vs. Cypress Centurions
The El Modena Vanguards will face off against the Cypress Centurions at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday. The two teams might be coming in a bit winded given these two teams combined for 822 yards in their previous games.
El Modena is headed into Thursday's contest hungry for a win as their strong season has now been derailed by two straight defeats. They fell 28-21 to Capistrano Valley on Friday. The match marked the Vanguards' lowest-scoring game so far this season.
The match pitted two dominant signal callers against one another in Xzavior Guess and Tommy Acosta. Acosta had a great game and threw for 229 yards and two touchdowns. Meanwhile, Guess was balling out in the loss, rushing for 170 yards and a touchdown while picking up 9.4 yards per carry, and also throwing for 147 yards and two touchdowns while completing 76.9% of his passes.
Even though they lost, El Modena was unstoppable on the ground and finished the game with 273 rushing yards. They easily outclassed their opponents in that department as Capistrano Valley only rushed for 151.
Even if they lost, El Modena's defense still kept up the pressure with three sacks. In that department, Andrew Alvarez was the leader with two.
Meanwhile, Cypress was not able to break out of their rough patch on Friday as the team picked up their fifth straight loss. They received a blow as they fell 42-28 to Trabuco Hills. While losing is never fun, the Centurions can't take it too hard given the team's big disadvantage in MaxPreps' California football rankings (they are ranked 313th, while the Mustangs are ranked 129th).
Cypress might have lost, but man, Bryson Busbee was a machine: he rushed for 193 yards and two touchdowns while picking up 9.2 yards per carry. Busbee's longest rush was for an incredible 71 yards.
Cypress didn't go easy on the quarterback and picked off two passes before the game was over. In fact, those interceptions all came courtesy of defensive juggernaut Matthew Baldonado.
El Modena's defeat ended a four-game streak of away wins and brought them to 7-2. As for Cypress, their loss dropped their record down to 2-7.
El Modena ended up a good deal behind Cypress in their previous matchup back in August of 2023, losing 31-14. Thankfully for El Modena, Aidan Houston (who rushed for 91 yards and a touchdown on only 11 carries, and also threw for 230 yards and a touchdown) won't be suiting up this time. Will that be enough to change the final result? There's only one way to find out.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
