The Venice Indians will head out to challenge the Lehigh Lightning at 7:30 p.m. on Friday. The teams are on pretty different trajectories at the moment (Venice has five straight wins, Lehigh has five straight defeats), but none of that matters once you're on the field.
Venice's upcoming contest probably won't be as stressful as their last, when they took on another nationally ranked opponent: Cocoa, who was ranked 27th at the time (Venice was ranked 19th). Venice narrowly escaped with a victory as the team sidled past Cocoa 54-51.
It was another big night for Dorien Irving-Jones, who rushed for 226 yards and two touchdowns while picking up 7.3 yards per carry, and also picked up 36 receiving yards and a touchdown. The dominant performance gave him a new career-high in rushing yards. Another player making a difference was Jayce Nixon, who threw for 279 yards and three touchdowns.
Perhaps unsurprisingly given the score, Venice was unstoppable on the ground and finished the game with 290 rushing yards. That's the most rushing yards they've managed all season.
Meanwhile, it's never fun to lose, and it's even less fun to lose 41-13, which was the final score in Lehigh's tilt against North Fort Myers last Friday.
Venice's win was their 14th straight at home dating back to last season, which pushed their record up to 5-0. As for Lehigh, their loss dropped their record down to 0-4.
Everything came up roses for Venice against Lehigh when the teams last played back in November of 2022, as the squad secured a 39-0 victory. The rematch might be a little tougher for Venice since the team won't have the home-field advantage this time around. We'll see if the change in venue makes a difference.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
