Football Preview: Stansbury Stallions vs. Ridgeline Riverhawks
Two dominant signal callers in Coleman Dearden and Nate Dahle are getting ready to go toe-to-toe. The Stansbury Stallions will head out on the road to square off against the Ridgeline Riverhawks at 6:00 p.m. on Friday. Both teams are coming into the matchup red-hot, with Stansbury sitting on four straight victories and Ridgeline on 11.
Stansbury is on a roll after a high-stakes playoff matchup on Friday. They secured a 33-27 W over Desert Hills.
Dearden was his usual excellent self, rushing for 92 yards and two touchdowns on only 11 carries, while also throwing for 80 yards and two touchdowns. Those 92 rushing yards gave him a new career-high. Backing up that air attack was Tyson Ferry, who rushed for 121 yards and a rushing touchdown.
Stansbury was unstoppable on the ground and finished the game with 254 rushing yards. That strong performance was nothing new for the team: they've now rushed for at least 248 rushing yards in four consecutive matches.
Stansbury didn't go easy on the quarterback and picked off two passes before the game was over. The picks came courtesy of Xaviah Patch and Gabe Binkley.
Meanwhile, Ridgeline won against West Field back in October with 45 points and they decided to stick to that point total again on Friday. Ridgeline simply couldn't be stopped as they easily beat Hurricane 45-7. The result was nothing new for the Riverhawks, who have now won eight contests by 34 points or more so far this season.
Jt White continued his habit of posting crazy stat lines, rushing for 175 yards and two touchdowns on only 15 carries. His rushing production has been exceptional recently as that marked his fourth straight game with at least 130 rushing yards. Another player making a difference was Dahle, who threw for 196 yards and four touchdowns.
Another reason for the win was Ridgeline's imposing defense, which managed to get into the backfield for seven sacks. The heavy lifting was done by Krew Jones and Charlie Booth, who racked up 4.5 sacks between them.
Stansbury has been performing incredibly well recently as they've won seven of their last eight games, which provided a nice bump to their 8-3 record this season. Those good results were due in large part to their defensive effort, having only surrendered 14.3 points per game. As for Ridgeline, their win was their 13th straight at home dating back to last season, which pushed their record up to 11-0.
The upcoming matchup will be a clash of competing strengths. Stansbury has deployed a run-first offense that has averaged 207.9 rushing yards a game. Meanwhile, Ridgeline has preferred to attack from the air: they average 266.5 passing yards per game. So which strategy will prevail on Friday? There's only one way to find out.
Stansbury came up short against Ridgeline in their previous matchup back in August, falling 28-20. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of White, who rushed for 85 yards and two touchdowns. Now that Stansbury 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
