Preview: Breese Central Cougars vs. Columbia Eagles
The Breese Central Cougars will head out on the road to face off against the Columbia Eagles at 7:00 p.m. on Friday. Hopefully Breese Central is not getting complacent, as they come into the match much higher ranked than Columbia in Illinois (Breese Central is ranked 121st, while Columbia is ranked 351st).
After a string of five wins, Breese Central's good fortune finally ran out on Friday. They were the victim of a rough 52-28 defeat at the hands of Roxana. Breese Central was down 52-22 at the end of the third quarter, which was just too much to recover from.
Even though the team lost, they still came through with several impressive performances. One of the most dominant came from Preston Baker, who threw for 255 yards and two touchdowns, and also punched in a touchdown on the ground. Griffen Becker was in the mix as well, providing Breese Central with two touchdowns.
Meanwhile, Columbia missed an extra point against Salem on Friday and it came back to haunt them. Columbia was just a hair shy of victory and fell 27-26 to Salem.
Columbia's loss shouldn't obscure the performances of Mason Voegele, who threw for 161 yards and three touchdowns while completing 75% of his passes, and Dalton Rainwater who picked up 59 receiving yards and two touchdowns.
The losses dropped Breese Central to 5-2 and Columbia to 1-6.
Here's a few offensive stats to keep an eye on ahead of Friday' matchup: Breese Central commands a daunting offense this season, having averaged 4.6 touchdowns per game. It's a different story for Columbia, though, as they've been averaging only 1.7 per game. Will Breese Central continue their march to the end zone, or will Columbia flip the ?
Breese Central and Columbia were almost perfectly matched up in their previous matchup back in October of 2022, but Breese Central suffered an agonizing 28-27 loss. Thankfully for Breese Central, Dominic Voegele (who rushed for 385 yards and four touchdowns while picking up 16.7 yards per carry) won't be suiting up this time. Will that be enough to change the final result? There's only one way to find out.
