Football Preview: Atascadero Greyhounds vs. Morro Bay Pirates
The Atascadero Greyhounds are taking a road trip to square off against the Morro Bay Pirates at 7:00 p.m. on Friday. Both come into the match bolstered by wins in their previous matches.
Atascadero is on a roll after a high-stakes playoff matchup on Friday. They walked away with a 21-14 win over Liberty.
Atascadero found their leader in sophomore Michael Trejo, who rushed for 68 yards and a touchdown on only nine carries, and also threw for 176 yards and a touchdown while completing 87.5% of his passes. Joseph Hyde was another key player, rushing for 100 yards and a touchdown on only nine carries.
Meanwhile, Morro Bay earned a 34-26 victory over Reedley on Friday. Morro Bay pushed the score to 34-13 by the end of the third, a deficit Reedley cut but never quite recovered from.
Sands Dougherty was his usual excellent self, throwing for 348 yards and four touchdowns while completing 80.6% of his passes. His passing production has been exceptional as that marked his eighth straight game with at least 309 passing yards.
Morro Bay has been performing well recently as they've won three of their last four contests, which provided a massive bump to their 5-6 record this season. Those victories were due in large part to their offensive performance across that stretch, as they averaged 42.3 points per game. As for Atascadero, they now have a winning record of 6-5.
The upcoming matchup will be a clash of competing strengths. Atascadero has deployed a run-first offense that has averaged 199.6 rushing yards a game. Meanwhile, Morro Bay has preferred to attack from the air: they average 310 passing yards per game. So which strategy will prevail on Friday? There's only one way to find out.
Atascadero suffered a grim 54-34 defeat to Morro Bay when the teams last played back in October. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of Dougherty, who rushed for 170 yards and three touchdowns while picking up 10.6 yards per carry, and also threw for 339 yards and three touchdowns on only 15 passes. Now that Atascadero knows the damage he can cause, will they be able to stop him this time? Check MaxPreps.com after the match to find out.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
