Football Preview: Cedar Hill Longhorns vs. Waxahachie Indians
The Cedar Hill Longhorns are taking a road trip to challenge the Waxahachie Indians at 7:00 p.m. on Friday. Cedar Hill is strutting in with some offensive muscle as they've averaged 29.2 points per game this season.
Cedar Hill took a loss when they played away from home back in September, but their home fans gave them all the motivation they needed on Friday. They strolled past Mesquite with points to spare, taking the game 28-14. The Longhorns' offense checked out after the first half but had enough points banked to take the game anyway.
Multiple players turned in solid performances to lead Cedar Hill to victory, but perhaps none more so than CJ Castleberry, who rushed for 132 yards and a touchdown on only 15 carries. Castleberry's longest rush was for an impressive 52 yards, which helps to explain his lofty yards per carry total. The team also got some help courtesy of Dayshun Reese, who rushed for 129 yards and a touchdown while picking up 8.1 yards per carry.
He was just one part of a punishing run game: Cedar Hill was unstoppable on the ground and finished the game with 307 rushing yards. That strong performance was nothing new for the team: they've now rushed for at least 235 rushing yards in three consecutive matches.
Meanwhile, Waxahachie didn't have too much breathing room in their matchup against Horn on Friday, but they still walked away with a 37-33 victory. Given the Indians' advantage in MaxPreps' Texas football rankings (they are ranked 26th, while the Jaguars are ranked 268th), the result wasn't entirely unexpected.
The critical scores for Waxahachie came from Tristian Gardner, Trenton Kidd, and Bryson Linnear.
On the defensive side of the ball, a lot of the credit has to go to Waxahachie's defensive line and their five sacks. The heavy lifting was done by Cade Pointer and Carmelo Clawson, who racked up all five sacks between them. Clawson also set a new season high mark in total tackles with seven.
The win got Cedar Hill back to even at 3-3. As for Waxahachie, the victory also got them back to even at 3-3.
The upcoming game will be a clash of competing strengths. Cedar Hill has deployed a run-first offense that has averaged 228.8 rushing yards a game. Meanwhile, Waxahachie has preferred to attack from the air: they average 300.7 passing yards per game. So which strategy will prevail on Friday? There's only one way to find out.
Cedar Hill lost to Waxahachie on the road by a decisive 39-21 margin in their previous matchup back in September of 2023. Thankfully for Cedar Hill, Ramon Mckinney Jr. (who rushed for 115 yards and two touchdowns on only seven carries, and also threw for 36 yards and a touchdown) won't be suiting up this time. Will that be enough to change the final result? Check MaxPreps.com after the match to find out.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
