Football Preview: Sunnyside Wildcats vs. McLane Highlanders
Sunnyside is 10-0 against McLane since October of 2014, and they'll have a chance to extend that success on Thursday. The Sunnyside Wildcats will venture away from home to face off against the McLane Highlanders at 7:30 p.m. The two teams are sauntering into the matchup backed by comfortable wins in their prior games.
Sunnyside's defense heads into the game hoping to repeat the dominance they displayed last Thursday. They simply couldn't be stopped as they easily beat Ridgeview 33-0 at home. Given the Wildcats' advantage in MaxPreps' California football rankings (they are ranked 163rd, while the Wolf Pack are ranked 719th), the result wasn't entirely unexpected.
Donta Hart had a dynamite game for Sunnyside, rushing for 106 yards on only 11 carries, while also picking up 63 receiving yards. The dominant performance gave Hart a new career-high in rushing yards.
Perhaps unsurprisingly given the score, Sunnyside was unstoppable on the ground and finished the game with 233 rushing yards. They easily outclassed their opponents in that department as Ridgeview only rushed for 130.
Meanwhile, you can't lose the match if you win every quarter, and that was precisely McLane's strategy against Santa Maria on Friday. Given that consistent dominance, it should come as no surprise that McLane blew Santa Maria out of the water with a 55-0 final score. The matchup was all but wrapped up at the end of the third, by which point the Highlanders had established a 41 point advantage.
McLane relied on the efforts of Noah Zamora, who threw for 303 yards and six touchdowns while completing 90% of his passes, and Dimareea Banks, who rushed for 171 yards and a touchdown on only five carries. Banks really tore up the turf during one magnificent 85-yard run. The team also got some help courtesy of Jazz Boyland, who rushed for 92 yards and a touchdown on only seven carries.
Sunnyside pushed their record up to 3-0 with that victory, which was their seventh straight at home dating back to last season. As for McLane, the win (which was their third in a row) raised their record to 3-0.
The upcoming contest will be a clash of competing strengths. Sunnyside has deployed a run-first offense that has averaged 216.3 rushing yards a game. Meanwhile, McLane has preferred to attack from the air: they average 303 passing yards per game. So which strategy will prevail on Thursday? There's only one way to find out.
Everything came up roses for Sunnyside against McLane in their previous matchup back in October of 2023 as the team secured a 43-8 victory. The rematch might be a little tougher for Sunnyside since the squad 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
