After two games on the road, Hilmar is heading back home. They will host the Escalon Cougars at 7:00 p.m. on Friday. Hilmar will be hoping to continue their three-game streak of scoring more points each matchup than the last.
Hilmar is headed in fresh off scoring the most points they have all season. They walked away with a 31-21 win over Ripon Christian on Friday. Perhaps unsurprisingly given the team's high-flying offense, the game also marked the team's biggest victory of the season.
Multiple players turned in solid performances to lead Hilmar to victory, but perhaps none more so than Merek Ellerd, who threw for 180 yards and two touchdowns while completing 78.6% of his passes, and also rushed for 108 yards. Caden Bailey was another key rusher, rushing for 101 yards and two touchdowns.
He was just one part of a punishing run game: Hilmar was unstoppable on the ground and finished the game with 235 rushing yards. That's the most rushing yards they've managed all season.
Meanwhile, Escalon lost 35-14 to Sonora on Friday. While losing is never fun, the Cougars can't take it too hard given the team's big disadvantage in MaxPreps' California football rankings (they are ranked 279th, while the Wildcats are ranked 102nd).
Although Escalon took the loss, they still got scores from Chase Cummings and Dylan Ball.
Hilmar's win bumped their record up to 3-1. As for Escalon, this is the second loss in a row for them and nudges their season record down to 1-3.
Hilmar took a serious blow against Escalon in their previous meeting back in October of 2023, falling 49-21. That game was all but decided by halftime, at which point Hilmar was down 35-14.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
