Football Preview: Paulding County Patriots vs. East Paulding Raiders
The Paulding County Patriots will take on the East Paulding Raiders at 7:30 p.m. on Friday.
Paulding County is coming in off a wild two-game stretch: after soaring to 41 points last Saturday, they were much more limited against North Atlanta on Friday. They lost 31-10 to the Warriors. While losing is never fun, the Patriots can't take it too hard given the team's big disadvantage in MaxPreps' Georgia football rankings (they are ranked 214th, while the Warriors are ranked 76th).
Meanwhile, East Paulding had to kick off their season on the road on Friday, but they showed no ill effects. They put the hurt on North Paulding with a sharp 43-23 victory. For those keeping track at home, that's the biggest win the Raiders have posted against the Wolfpack since August 29, 2014.
Chantz Bouknight had a dynamite game for East Paulding, rushing for 150 yards and three touchdowns on only 15 carries, while also throwing for 140 yards and two touchdowns while completing 78.6% of his passes. East Paulding also got a significant boost from Javen Parker, who ran away from the competition to the tune of 120 yards.
Perhaps unsurprisingly given the score, East Paulding was moving up and down the field and finished the game with 434 total yards. That's the most total yards they've posted since back in September of 2023.
Special teams also deserves some recognition, posting 13 points in total. All came courtesy of Landon Shaffer: he went 3-for-3 kicking field goals for nine points, and 4-for-4 kicking extra points for an additional four.
Paulding County was taken down by East Paulding 44-7 when the teams last played back in September of 2023. Thankfully for Paulding County, Gill Nkrumah (who picked up 116 receiving yards and two touchdowns) won't be suiting up this time. Will that be enough to change the final result? There's only one way to find out.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
