Football Game Preview: Mandarin Mustangs vs. St. Augustine Yellow Jackets

After both having extra time off, the Mandarin Mustangs and the St. Augustine Yellow Jackets will dust off their jerseys to face off against one another at 6:00 p.m. on Monday. Mandarin's defense has only allowed 9.5 points per game this season, so St. Augustine's offense will have their work cut out for them.

Mandarin is headed in fresh off scoring the most points they have all season. They really took it to Englewood for the full four quarters, racking up a 39-0 victory. Given the Mustangs' advantage in MaxPreps' Florida football rankings (they are ranked 102nd, while the Rams are ranked 349th), the result last Wednesday wasn't entirely unexpected.

A big part of Mandarin's win came down to the chemistry between Camron Latsko and her top target Aubrey Watts. Latsko threw for 191 yards and three touchdowns while completing 72.7% of her passes while Watts picked up 24 receiving yards and one touchdown.

Keiarra Curry

Sacks

03/12/25 @ Englewood	3
03/10/25 vs First Coast	1

One reason for the win was Mandarin's imposing defense, which managed to get into the backfield for five sacks. The heavy lifting was done by Keiarra Curry and Shadae Reid, who racked up all five sacks between them. With that strong performance, Curry is now averaging an impressive 1.3 sacks per game.

Meanwhile, St. Augustine was not the first on the board last Thursday, but they got there more often. They secured a 19-13 W over Florida School for the Deaf & Blind. The score was all tied up 13-13 at the break, but the Yellow Jackets were the (much) better team in the second half.

The victory made it two in a row for Mandarin and bumps their season record up to 6-2. Those victories came thanks in part to their defensive effort, having only surrendered 3.0 points on average over those games. As for St. Augustine, they moved to 2-3 with that win, which also ended their three-game losing streak.

Mandarin didn't have too much breathing room in their contest against St. Augustine in their previous meeting back in April of 2023, but they still walked away with a 12-6 victory. The rematch might be a little tougher for Mandarin since the squad won't have the home-field advantage this time around. We'll see if the change in venue makes a difference.