Football Preview: Desert Edge Scorpions vs. Verrado Vipers
The Desert Edge Scorpions will challenge the Verrado Vipers at 7:00 p.m. on Friday. The two teams might be coming in a bit winded given these two teams combined for 848 yards in their previous games.
Desert Edge is on a roll after a high-stakes playoff matchup on Friday. They enjoyed a cozy 30-14 victory over Tucson High Magnet School. The win made it back-to-back victories for the Scorpions.
Desert Edge found their leader in sophomore Blake Roskopf, who threw for 206 yards and two touchdowns, and also punched in a touchdown on the ground. Zerek Sidney was Roskopf's top target, picking up 69 receiving yards and two touchdowns.
Desert Edge was unstoppable on the ground and finished the game with 237 rushing yards. That's the most rushing yards they've posted since back in November of 2023.
Desert Edge wouldn't let Tucson High Magnet School keep a hold of the ball as they managed to force two fumbles. Desert Edge can thank Jalanie George and Jerry Washington for forcing both of them. George also set a new season high mark in total tackles with six.
Meanwhile, Verrado 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 on Friday. They strolled past the Colts with points to spare, taking the game 41-26. The Vipers pushed the score to 34-6 by the end of the third, a deficit the Colts cut but never quite recovered from.
A big part of Verrado's win came down to the chemistry between Malachi Wilt and his top target Deriece Brown. Wilt threw for 327 yards and three touchdowns while picking up 14.9 yards per attempt while Brown picked up 176 receiving yards and two touchdowns. Brown's longest reception was for an incredible 94 yards. Jack Isidore helped Wilt out on the ground, rushing for 85 yards and three touchdowns.
Desert Edge has been performing incredibly well recently as they've won seven of their last eight games, which provided a massive bump to their 8-4 record this season. Those victories were due in large part to their defensive effort, having only surrendered 13.1 points per game. As for Verrado, they pushed their record up to 10-2 with the victory, which was their sixth straight on the road.
Desert Edge came up short against Verrado when the teams last played on November 8th, falling 17-10. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of Isidore, who rushed for 216 yards and a touchdown, and also picked up 50 receiving yards. Now that Desert Edge knows the damage he can cause, will they be able to stop him this time? There's only one way to find out.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
