Football Preview: Central Catholic Fighting Irish vs. Padua Franciscan Bruins
The Central Catholic Fighting Irish will face off against the Padua Franciscan Bruins at 7:00 p.m. on Friday. Central Catholic will be looking to keep their 17-game home win streak dating back to last season alive.
Central Catholic is on a roll after a high-stakes playoff matchup on Friday. They breezed by Lexington to the tune of 35-7. Considering the Fighting Irish have won eight contests by more than 20 points this season, Friday's blowout was nothing new.
Meanwhile, winning is always nice, but doing so behind a season-high score is even better (just ask Padua Franciscan). They enjoyed a cozy 42-28 win over Benedictine on Friday. Padua Franciscan's victory was all the more impressive since the Bengals were averaging only 13.54 points allowed on the season.
It was another big night for Roderick Love, who rushed for 258 yards and four touchdowns while picking up 7.8 yards per carry. He is becoming a predictor of Padua Franciscan's success: when he posts at least two rushing touchdowns the team is undefeated (and 4-5 when he doesn't). The team also got some help courtesy of Riley Cervenka, who picked up 95 receiving yards and two touchdowns.
Padua Franciscan was unstoppable on the ground and finished the game with 269 rushing yards. That strong performance was nothing new for the team: they've now rushed for at least 215 rushing yards in three consecutive games.
Padua Franciscan didn't go easy on the quarterback and picked off three passes before the game was over. The picks came courtesy of Conner Williams and Antonio Haddad.
Padua Franciscan has been performing well recently as they've won four of their last five matches, which provided a nice bump to their 8-5 record this season. Those victories were due in large part to their offensive performance across that stretch, as they averaged 30.0 points per game. As for Central Catholic, their win bumped their record up to 12-1.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
