Football Preview: Lopez Lobos vs. Pace Vikings
Lopez hasn't had much luck against Pace recently, but that could start to change on Thursday. The Lopez Lobos are taking a road trip to square off against the Pace Vikings at 7:00 p.m. One thing working in Lopez's favor is that they have posted at least 31 points in their last three matches.
Lopez will head into Friday's matchup after some sweet revenge against Porter: Lopez lost a heartbreaker the last time they played Porter, but it's fair to say they've redeemed themselves given the result of 5's game. Lopez put the hurt on Porter with a sharp 31-10 victory on Friday. For those keeping track at home, that's the biggest win the Lobos have posted against the Cowboys since September 28, 2017.
Lopez's success was spearheaded by the efforts of Eddie Slovak, who rushed for 163 yards and a touchdown, and Guadalupe Ramirez, who threw for 256 yards and three touchdowns while completing 85.7% of his passes. Slovak is crushing it when it comes to rushing yards: he's rushed for at least 110 every time he's taken the field this season. 129 of Ramirez's passing yards were hauled in by Gabriel Rios, who also brought in a receiving touchdown.
Meanwhile, Pace didn't have quite enough to beat Edcouch-Elsa on Friday and fell 28-26.
Pace might have lost, but man, Adrian Sauceda was a machine: he rushed for 194 yards and three touchdowns. Sauceda's longest rush was for an incredible 71 yards.
Even though they lost, Pace was unstoppable on the ground and finished the game with 230 rushing yards. That strong performance was nothing new for the team: they've now rushed for at least 230 rushing yards in eight consecutive contests.
Lopez is on a roll lately: they've won four of their last five matches, which provided a nice bump to their 6-2 record this season. As for Pace, their defeat dropped their record down to an identical 6-2.
Thursday's matchup will pit two of the most dominant backs against one another: Slovak and Sauceda. Slovak has put up some stellar numbers this year, and currently owns excellent season averages 168.2 rushing yards per game this season. For his part, Sauceda has averaged 228.4 rushing yards per game this season.
Lopez came up short against Pace in their previous meeting back in October of 2023, falling 41-31. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of Sauceda, who rushed for 172 yards and two touchdowns while picking up 8.6 yards per carry. Now that Lopez 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
