Football Preview: Ruston Bearcats vs. Stephenville Yellow Jackets/Honeybees
The Ruston Bearcats will challenge the Stephenville Yellow Jackets/Honeybees at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday. Both teams are still undefeated (Ruston has 17 wins dating back to last season, while Stephenville has five dating back to last season).
Ruston is headed into the contest after thoroughly thrashing Midland Legacy: they outscored them in every quarter. Given that consistent dominance, it should come as no surprise that Ruston blew Midland Legacy out of the water with a 38-6 final score. The matchup was all but wrapped up at the end of the third, by which point the Bearcats had established a 25 point advantage.
Meanwhile, Stephenville was able to grind out a solid victory over La Vega on Friday, taking the game 38-28. Given the Yellow Jackets/Honeybees' advantage in MaxPreps' Texas football rankings (they are ranked 41st, while the Pirates are ranked 134th), the result wasn't entirely unexpected.
Sawyer Wilkerson was his usual excellent self, rushing for 218 yards and three touchdowns while picking up 9.5 yards per carry. He showed off some serious burst, cutting through the defense on one rush that went for 61 yards. Tristian Gentry did his part to keep the secondary busy, picking up 93 receiving yards.
On the other side of the ball, a lot of the credit has to go to Stephenville's defense and their seven sacks. Kolton Dearth was especially locked on to La Vega's QB and sacked him three times. Dearth also set a new season high mark in total tackles with eight. Another thorn in La Vega's side was Caleb Taylor, who picked up a sack, made 13 total tackles, and defended a pass.
Perhaps unsurprisingly given the score, Stephenville was unstoppable on the ground and finished the game with 242 rushing yards. That strong performance was nothing new for the team: they've now rushed for at least 153 rushing yards in four consecutive matches.
Ruston's win was their tenth straight at home dating back to last season, which pushed their record up to 4-0. As for Stephenville, their record is now 5-0.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
