Football Preview: Union Farmers vs. Phillipsburg Stateliners
Union has been away from home for two games now, but on Friday they'll finally make their return. They will welcome the Phillipsburg Stateliners at 7:00 p.m. The two teams are sauntering into the matchup backed by comfortable wins in their prior games.
Having struggled with seven defeats in a row dating back to last season, Union finally turned things around against South Brunswick on Thursday. They claimed a resounding 35-7 win over the Vikings on the road. The Farmers' offense finally found a way to get into gear: the high-octane performance was a 180-degree turn from their last four games.
Union's victory was a true team effort, with many players turning in solid performances. Perhaps the best among them was Omalley King, who rushed for 86 yards and a touchdown on only 11 carries, and also threw for 38 yards and a touchdown. Bryan Accinot was another key back, rushing for 58 yards and two touchdowns on only eight carries.
He was just one part of a punishing run game: Union was unstoppable on the ground and finished the game with 283 rushing yards. That's the most rushing yards they've posted since back in October of 2023.
One reason for the win was Union's imposing defense, which managed to get into the backfield for four sacks. Kervin Desir was especially locked on to South Brunswick's QB and sacked him twice. Union got some further help from Dakari Dugger: he picked up a sack and made ten total tackles (3.0 for loss).
Meanwhile, winning is always nice, but doing so behind a season-high score is even better (just ask Phillipsburg). They simply couldn't be stopped on Friday as they easily beat St. Joseph 49-14 at home. Considering the Stateliners have won four matchups by more than 26 points this season, Friday's blowout was nothing new.
The match pitted two dominant signal callers against one another in Jett Genovese and Justin Scaramuzzo. Genovese had a great game and rushed for 83 yards on only six carries. Meanwhile, Scaramuzzo was balling out in the loss, throwing for 273 yards and two touchdowns while picking up 10.5 yards per attempt.
Union's first win this season bumped their record up to 1-6. As for Phillipsburg, their victory was their sixth straight at home dating back to last season, which pushed their record up to 6-1.
Union suffered a grim 27-6 defeat to Phillipsburg in their previous meeting back in October of 2023. Thankfully for Union, Kevin Burgess (who picked up 103 receiving yards and a touchdown, and also punched in a touchdown on the ground) won't be suiting up this time. Will that be enough to change the final result? Check MaxPreps.com after the match to find out.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
