The Coal City Coalers will face off against the Sterling Golden Warriors at 4:00 p.m. on Saturday. Coal City's defense has only allowed 12.9 points per game this season, so Sterling's offense will have their work cut out for them.
Coal City is probably headed into the matchup with a chip on their shoulder considering Wilmington just ended the team's six-game winning streak on Friday. They lost 44-21 to the Wildcats.
Meanwhile, Sterling really took it to Rock Island for the full four quarters, racking up a 42-14 win. Given the Golden Warriors' advantage in MaxPreps' Illinois football rankings (they are ranked 158th, while the Rocks are ranked 325th) , the win on Friday wasn't entirely unexpected.
Coal City better focus on containing Brady Berlin and Wyatt Cassens as the pair were huge in Sterling's win. Berlin threw for 129 yards and two touchdowns while completing 88.9% of his passes, while Cassens gained 117 total yards. Berlin also punched in a rushing touchdown, marking his first of the season.
Wins are hard to come by when you can't run the rock, something Sterling proved: they limited Rock Island to a paltry three yards per carry. The Golden Warriors didn't have any issues in that department, having averaged 7.4.
Sterling has been performing well recently as they've won five of their last six games. That's provided a nice bump to their 6-3 record this season. The team dominated over that stretch too, winning by an average of 32 points. As for Coal City, their defeat was their first in the conference, dropping their conference record down to 5-1 and their overall record down to 7-2.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
