The Mesa Jackrabbits will square off against the Casteel Colts at 7:00 p.m. on Friday. Both are sauntering into the matchup backed by comfortable wins in their prior games.
Mesa's offense will try to repeat the strong performance it gave on Friday, when they got past Dobson's usually-dominant defense. Mesa took their match at home with ease, bagging a 41-7 win over Dobson. The matchup was pretty much decided by the half, when the score had already reached 31-0.
Mesa found their leader in underclassman Rio Arnett, who rushed for 85 yards and three touchdowns. Those 85 rushing yards set a new season-high mark for Arnett. Mesa also got help from Griffin Yamamoto, who showed off his sure hands for 123 receiving yards.
Meanwhile, winning is always nice, but doing so behind a season-high score is even better (just ask Casteel). They blew past Mountain Ridge, posting a 45-6 victory at home. For those keeping track at home, that's the biggest win the Colts have posted since September 15, 2023.
Paul Palmer continued his habit of posting crazy stat lines, throwing for 203 yards and five touchdowns while completing 77.8% of his passes, and also rushing for 58 yards and a touchdown. With that strong performance, he is now averaging an impressive 3.2 passing touchdowns per game. Another player making a difference was Isaiah Linyear, who rushed for 138 yards on only ten carries.
He was just one part of a punishing run game: Casteel was unstoppable on the ground and finished the game with 256 rushing yards. That strong performance was nothing new for the team: they've now rushed for at least 152 rushing yards in nine consecutive contests dating back to last season.
The victory got Mesa back to even at 2-2. As for Casteel, the win also got them back to even at 2-2.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
