Football Preview: Cocoa Tigers vs. Norland Vikings
Two dominant signal callers in Brady Hart and Ennio Yapoor are getting ready to go toe-to-toe. The Cocoa Tigers will be playing at home against the Norland Vikings at 7:00 p.m. on Friday. Cocoa will be looking to keep their 12-game home win streak dating back to last season alive.
Cocoa's upcoming matchup probably won't be as stressful as their last, when they took on another nationally ranked opponent: Venice, who was ranked 19th at the time (Cocoa was ranked 27th). Cocoa fell just short of Venice by a score of 54-51 last Friday. Despite running the score up even higher than they did in their prior game back in September (39), the Tigers still had to take the loss.
Cocoa's loss shouldn't obscure the performances of Hart, who threw for 527 yards and four touchdowns while completing 71.1% of his passes, and Jayvan Boggs, who picked up 253 receiving yards and three touchdowns. With that strong performance, Hart is now averaging an impressive 345.2 passing yards per game. Latrison Lane helped Hart out on the ground, rushing for 82 yards and three touchdowns.
Meanwhile, winning is always nice, but doing so behind a season-high score is even better (just ask Norland). They claimed a resounding 49-16 win over Archbishop McCarthy on the road. Norland's victory was all the more impressive since the Mavericks were averaging only 15.8 points allowed on the season.
Yapoor was his usual excellent self, throwing for 358 yards and four touchdowns while picking up 12.8 yards per attempt. Dawson Quarterman was another key player, picking up 145 receiving yards and two touchdowns.
Norland's defense was in the mix too, especially the secondary: they snagged two passes before it was all said and done. The picks came courtesy of Kenton Dopson Iii and Jaden Daniels. Norland got some further help from Michael Smith: he picked up a sack and made six total tackles (2.0 for loss).
Cocoa's defeat dropped their record down to 3-2. As for Norland, their win bumped their record up to 4-1.
The upcoming contest will be a clash of competing strengths. Cocoa has relied on air attacks this season and has averaged 345.2 passing yards per game. Norland, on the other hand, has relied on a stout run game: they average 177.4 rushing yards per game. So which strategy will prevail on Friday? There's only one way to find out.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
