Football Preview: Northern Highlands Highlanders vs. Phillipsburg Stateliners
The Northern Highlands Highlanders will be staying on the road on Friday to face off against the Phillipsburg Stateliners at 7:00 p.m. Both have allowed few points on average, (Northern Highlands: 12.8, Phillipsburg: 13) so any points scored will be well earned.
Northern Highlands is on a roll after a high-stakes playoff matchup on Friday. They beat Woodbridge by the very same score they won with in their prior game: 26-7. The Highlanders pushed the score to 20-0 by the end of the third, a deficit the Barrons cut but never quite recovered from.
Meanwhile, Phillipsburg entered their tilt with Chatham on Friday with six consecutive wins but they'll enter their next game with seven. They strolled past the Cougars with points to spare, taking the game 31-14. Phillipsburg's win was all the more impressive since the Cougars were averaging only 14 points allowed on the season.
Phillipsburg's success was spearheaded by the efforts of Jett Genovese, who rushed for 95 yards and two touchdowns on only 11 carries, and Sam Dech, who rushed for 128 yards and a touchdown on only nine carries. Dech's longest rush was for an impressive 57 yards, which helps to explain his lofty yards per carry total.
Phillipsburg was unstoppable on the ground and finished the game with 356 rushing yards. That strong performance was nothing new for the team: they've now rushed for at least 151 rushing yards in five consecutive matches.
Northern Highlands has been performing well recently as they've won four of their last five matchups, which provided a nice bump to their 7-4 record this season. Those good results were due in large part to their offensive performance across that stretch, as they averaged 26.6 points per game. As for Phillipsburg, their victory bumped their record up to 10-1.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
