On Thursday West will have to hit the road after three straight games at home. It'll be Eastside v. Westside when their and the East Leopards meet at 7:00 p.m. One thing working in West's favor is that they have posted at least 31 points in their last five contests.
Last Friday, everything went West's way against Highland as West made off with a 40-16 victory. The Panthers pushed the score to 34-9 by the end of the third, a deficit the Rams cut but never quite recovered from.
Kamden Lopati was his usual excellent self, throwing for 341 yards and three touchdowns while completing 72.7% of his passes, and also rushing for 80 yards and a touchdown on only seven carries. Jared Chase was in the mix too, providing West with two touchdowns.
West's defense stepped up as well, laying out the QB six times. Leading the way was Aisea Angilau with three sacks. He is also on a roll when it comes to total tackles, as he's now made five or more in the last ten games he's played dating back to last season. West got some further help from Lava Vailahi: he made 12 total tackles (1.0 for loss) and defended four passes.
Perhaps unsurprisingly given the score, West was unstoppable on the ground and finished the game with 375 rushing yards. That's the most rushing yards they've posted since back in September of 2023.
Meanwhile, East can finally bid farewell to their three-game losing streak thanks to their game on Friday. They were the clear victor by a 35-12 margin over Skyline. Considering the Leopards have won three matches by more than 20 points this season, Friday's blowout was nothing new.
West is on a roll lately: they've won four of their last five matchups, which provided a massive bump to their 4-4 record this season. As for East, the win also got them back to even at 4-4.
West strolled past East when the teams last played back in October of 2023 by a score of 33-16. The rematch might be a little tougher for West since the squad 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
