Football Preview: Verrado Vipers vs. Desert Edge Scorpions
The Verrado Vipers will take on the Desert Edge Scorpions at 7:00 p.m. on Friday. Verrado will be looking to extend their current five-game winning streak.
Verrado is on a roll after a high-stakes playoff matchup on Friday. They took down Buena 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 victory 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 really caught the secondary sleeping when he pulled down a catch that went for 94 yards. A healthy portion of Wilt's aerial production (90 yards to be exact) also went to Roman Alicea, who also brought in a receiving touchdown.
Meanwhile, Desert Edge strolled past Tucson High Magnet School with points to spare on Friday, taking the game 30-14. The win made it back-to-back victories for the Scorpions.
Blake Roskopf went supernova for Desert Edge, throwing for 206 yards and two touchdowns, while also punching 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.
On the defensive side of the ball, a lot of the credit has to go to Desert Edge's defense and their four sacks. Tucson High Magnet School's QB won't forget Jalanie George anytime soon given he sacked him twice. George also set a new season high mark in total tackles with six.
Desert Edge has been performing incredibly well recently as they've won seven of their last eight games, which provided a nice bump to their 8-4 record this season. Those good results were due in large part to their offensive performance across that stretch, as they averaged 31.4 points per game. As for Verrado, they pushed their record up to 10-2 with the win, which was their sixth straight on the road.
Friday's contest might be decided in the trenches. Verrado has been excellent on the ground this season, having averaged 186.9 rushing yards per game. It's a different story for Desert Edge, though, as they've been averaging only 88.9. How will they fare against such a dominant running game?
Verrado beat Desert Edge 17-10 in their previous matchup on November 8th. The rematch might be a little tougher for Verrado since the team won't have the home-field advantage this time around. We'll see if the change in venue makes a difference.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
