Football Preview: State College Little Lions vs. Harrisburg Cougars
The State College Little Lions will head out to square off against the Harrisburg Cougars at 1:00 p.m. on Saturday. The two teams might be coming in a bit winded given how much these teams ran up and down the field in their prior games.
State College's defense heads into the match hoping to repeat the dominance they displayed on Friday. They took their matchup at home with ease, bagging a 57-0 win over Altoona. Given the Little Lions' advantage in MaxPreps' Pennsylvania football rankings (they are ranked 32nd, while the Mountain Lions are ranked 165th), the result wasn't entirely unexpected.
A big part of the victory came down to the chemistry between Eddie Corkery and his top target Ty Salazer. Corkery threw for 237 yards and six touchdowns on only 15 passes while Salazer picked up 141 receiving yards and four touchdowns. With that strong performance, Corkery is now averaging an impressive 4 passing touchdowns per game. Levi Mellott helped Corkery out on the ground, rushing for 75 yards and a touchdown.
Perhaps unsurprisingly given the score, State College was moving up and down the field and finished the game with 407 total yards. That's the most total yards they've posted since back in September of 2023.
State College wouldn't let Altoona keep a hold of the ball as they managed to force three fumbles. It was truly a group effort as Anderson ?Aj? Fry, Nathan Haas, and Sean Brennen picked up one apiece. Haas didn't just play on offense: he also forced a fumble and made seven total tackles (4.0 for loss).
Meanwhile, it may have taken overtime to finish the job, but Harrisburg ultimately got the result they hoped for on Saturday. They sure made it a nail-biter, but they managed to escape with a 35-33 win over Bishop McDevitt. The high-flying offensive performance was a huge turnaround for the Cougars considering their seven-point performance the game before.
Jaiyon Lewis was nothing short of spectacular: he rushed for 117 yards and two touchdowns on only 12 carries, and also threw for 236 yards and a touchdown while completing 73.7% of his passes. A healthy portion of that aerial production (155 yards to be exact) went to Elias Coke, who also brought in a receiving touchdown.
The victory made it two in a row for State College and bumps their season record up to 2-0. As for Harrisburg, they pushed their record up to 1-1 with that win, which was their sixth straight on the road dating back to last season.
State College suffered a grim 20-0 defeat to Harrisburg when the teams last played back in October of 2023. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of Harrisburg's Shawn Lee, who rushed for 153 yards and a touchdown on only 13 carries, and also threw for 193 yards and a touchdown while completing 75% of his passes. Now that State College knows the damage he can cause, will they be able to stop him this time? There's only one way to find out.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
