The Mercy Culture Prep Royals will take on the First Baptist Saints at 7:00 p.m. on Friday. Mercy Culture Prep has a tough task ahead: they'll enter the match with eight straight losses, while First Baptist will come in with 17 straight wins.
Mercy Culture Prep is headed in fresh off scoring the most points they have all season. They lost to Coram Deo Academy on the road by a 38-20 margin on Friday.
Despite the defeat, Mercy Culture Prep got top-tier performance from Jon Anthony Lardizabal, who rushed for 128 yards and a touchdown.
Meanwhile, you're bound to get a positive result if you outscore your opponent every quarter, and that's exactly how it played out for First Baptist on Friday. Given that consistent dominance, it should come as no surprise that they blew Covenant Christian out of the water with a 56-14 final score. The Saints might be getting used to big wins seeing as the team has won three games by 35 points or more this season.
Bradlee Mays was his usual excellent self, picking up 155 receiving yards and four touchdowns. Quincy Rheams was another key player, rushing for 45 yards and a touchdown.
First Baptist wouldn't let Covenant Christian keep a hold of the ball as they managed to force two fumbles. First Baptist can thank Camp Pugh and George Anagnostis for forcing both of them. First Baptist got some further help from Kore Thomas: he picked up 4.5 sacks, made seven total tackles (6.0 for loss), and made seven total tackles (6.0 for loss).
Perhaps unsurprisingly given the score, First Baptist was unstoppable on the ground and finished the game with 236 rushing yards. That strong performance was nothing new for the team: they've now rushed for at least 161 rushing yards in seven consecutive contests dating back to last season.
Mercy Culture Prep's loss dropped their record down to 0-4. As for First Baptist, they pushed their record up to 4-0 with the victory, which was their sixth straight on the road dating back to last season.
The upcoming matchup will be a clash of competing strengths. Mercy Culture Prep has deployed a run-first offense that has averaged 196 rushing yards a game. Meanwhile, First Baptist has preferred to attack from the air: they average 354.2 passing yards per game. So which strategy will prevail on Friday? There's only one way to find out.
Mercy Culture Prep was dealt a bruising 68-26 defeat at the hands of First Baptist in their previous meeting back in September of 2023. Thankfully for Mercy Culture Prep, Hunter Mccoy (who threw for 262 yards and seven touchdowns while picking up 11.9 yards per attempt, and also rushed for 96 yards and a touchdown on only five carries) won't be suiting up this time. Will that be enough to change the final result? Check MaxPreps.com after the match to find out.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
