Jefferson has won ten straight games at home (dating back to last season), while Cherokee Bluff has won ten straight on the road, but those streaks won't matter much on Friday. The Jefferson Dragons will square off against the Cherokee Bluff Bears at 7:30 p.m. One thing working in Jefferson's favor is that they have posted at least 31 points in their last three games.
Last Friday, Jefferson was fully in charge, breezing past East Hall 49-7 at home. Considering the Dragons have won five matchups by more than 23 points this season, Friday's blowout was nothing new.
Gavin Markey continued his habit of posting crazy stat lines, rushing for 123 yards and a touchdown on only 11 carries, while also throwing for 125 yards and two touchdowns on only nine passes. His rushing production has been exceptional recently as that marked his third straight game with at least 105 rushing yards. Another player making a difference was Dallas Russell, who rushed for 74 yards and two touchdowns on only eight carries.
He was just one part of a punishing run game: Jefferson was unstoppable on the ground and finished the game with 365 rushing yards. That's the most rushing yards they've posted since back in November of 2023.
Meanwhile, Cherokee Bluff earned a 17-10 victory over Oconee County on Thursday. The 17-point effort marked the Bears' lowest-scoring match of the season, but in the end it didn't matter.
Brooks Brien was his usual excellent self, throwing for 191 yards and two touchdowns while completing 71.4% of his passes.
On the other side of the ball, a lot of the credit has to go to Cherokee Bluff's defense and their 5.5 sacks. Leading the way was Rylan Ackerman with two. Cherokee Bluff got some further help from Connor Griffin: he picked up 1.5 sacks and made six total tackles (2.5 for loss).
Jefferson's win bumped their record up to 6-2. As for Cherokee Bluff, their victory bumped their record up to 8-0.
Friday's contest will pit two of the most dominant signal callers against one another: Markey and Brien. Markey has put up some stellar numbers this year, and currently owns excellent season averages 127 passing yards and has 9 passing touchdowns on the season. For his part, Brien has averaged 218.8 passing yards and has 18 passing touchdowns on the season.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
