The Little River Academy Bumblebees will square off against the Diboll Lumberjacks at TBD on Friday. Expect the scorekeeper to be kept busy: if their previous games are any indication, the two teams will really light up the scoreboard.
It can be hard to translate regular season success to the playoffs, but Little River Academy had no problem doing just that on Thursday. They managed a 42-36 victory over Hitchcock. The win was just what Little River Academy needed coming off of a 49-28 defeat in their prior contest.
Little River Academy's success was spearheaded by the efforts of Kasey Mraz, who rushed for 106 yards, and Cavalli Nealy, who rushed for 77 yards and three touchdowns.
Meanwhile, Diboll had already won seven in a row (a stretch where they outscored their opponents by an average of 21.7 points), and they went ahead and made it eight on Friday. They took their match on the road with ease, bagging a 48-20 win over Buna. Diboll might be getting used to big wins seeing as the team's won five matchups by 23 points or more this season.
Little River Academy pushed their record up to 9-2 with that victory, which was their sixth straight at home. That said, the team wasn't facing the toughest opposition over that stretch, as it included 2-8 Salado and 3-8 Rockdale (their opponents had an average overall winning percentage of 40.8% over those games). As for Diboll, their victory bumped their record up to 9-2.
Little River Academy couldn't quite finish off Diboll in their previous matchup back in November of 2021 and fell 37-34. Can Little River Academy avenge their loss or is history doomed to repeat itself? We'll find out soon enough.
