Preview: New Prairie Cougars vs. Culver Academies Eagles
New Prairie is 3-0 against Culver Academies since November of 2019, and they'll have a chance to extend that success on Friday. The New Prairie Cougars will head out on the road to face off against the Culver Academies Eagles at 7:00 p.m. Both teams come into the matchup bolstered by wins in their previous matches.
It may have taken overtime to finish the job, but New Prairie ultimately got the result they hoped for on Friday. They walked away with a 28-21 win over Kankakee Valley. The win was nothing new for New Prairie as they're now sitting on three straight.
New Prairie's success was spearheaded by the efforts of Reed Robinson, who rushed for 103 yards and a touchdown on only 14 carries, and Marshall Kmiecik, who rushed for 103 yards and two touchdowns on only 14 carries.
The team's defense also helped out by holding Kankakee Valley to a paltry 223 yards. A big part of that defensive dominance came down to New Prairie's ability to keep the quarterback under pressure: the team laid him out six times before it was all said and done. Kankakee Valley's QB won't forget Harrison Groves anytime soon given Groves sacked him six times.
Culver Academies fell on hard times earlier this season, but after back-to-back wins it seems like their luck might finally be changing. They took their game at home on Friday with ease, bagging a 46-13 win over Highland. Culver Academies pushed the score to 46-7 by the end of the third, a deficit Highland cut but never quite recovered from.
New Prairie's victory was their fourth straight on the road, which bumped their overall record up to 9-2. That said, the team wasn't facing the toughest opposition over that stretch, as it included 1-9 South Bend Adams and 3-7 Elkhart (their opponents had an average overall winning percentage of 31.4% over those games). As for Culver Academies, their victory bumped their record up to 5-6.
New Prairie strolled past Culver Academies when the teams last played back in October of 2021 by a score of 23-7. Will New Prairie repeat their success, or does Culver Academies have a new game plan this time around? We'll find out soon enough.
