Football Preview: South Allegheny Gladiators vs. Ellwood City Wolverine
The South Allegheny Gladiators will venture away from home to challenge the Ellwood City Wolverine at 7:00 p.m. on Friday. Both are sauntering into the matchup backed by comfortable wins in their prior games.
South Allegheny took a loss when they played away from home two weeks ago, but their home fans gave them all the motivation they needed on Friday. They blew past Waynesburg Central 53-14. The high-flying offensive performance was a huge turnaround for the Gladiators considering their seven-point performance the matchup before.
South Allegheny's victory was a true team effort, with many players turning in solid performances. Perhaps the best among them was Cameron Epps, who rushed for 185 yards and two touchdowns on only 14 carries, and also picked up 82 receiving yards and a touchdown. Epps really caught the secondary sleeping when he pulled down a catch that went for 82 yards. Drew Cook was in the mix too, providing South Allegheny with four touchdowns.
Meanwhile, Ellwood City put another one in the bag two weeks ago to keep their perfect season alive. They never let Beaver Falls onto the board and left with a 52-0 win. The match marked the Wolverine's most dominant victory of the season.
Multiple players turned in solid performances to lead Ellwood City to victory, but perhaps none more so than Elijah Palmer-McCane, who rushed for 139 yards and a touchdown on only 12 carries. Palmer-McCane's rushing production has been exceptional as that marked his fifth straight game with at least 110 rushing yards. The team also got some help courtesy of Christopher Smiley, who threw for 159 yards and four touchdowns on only 12 passes.
Ellwood City was unstoppable on the ground and finished the game with 337 rushing yards. That's the most rushing yards they've posted since back in October of 2023.
Ellwood City's win was their fourth straight at home, which pushed their record up to 9-0. Those victories were due in large part to their defensive effort, having only surrendered 10.0 points per game. As for South Allegheny, they are on a roll lately: they've won five of their last six games, which provided a nice bump to their 9-2 record this season.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
