The St. Marys Blue Devils will look to defend their home field on Saturday against the East Hardy Cougars at 1:30 p.m. Both squads will be entering this one on the heels of a big victory.
St. Marys waltzed into Friday's contest with four straight wins but they left with five. They simply couldn't be stopped as they easily beat Ravenswood 46-6 on the road. 46 seems to be a good number for St. Marys as the squad scooped up a win with the same number of points in their previous game.
St. Marys' success was the result of a balanced attack that saw several players step up, but Ashton Boron led the charge by rushing for 157 yards and two touchdowns on only ten carries. Boron has been hot recently, having posted 100 or more rushing yards the last three times he's played. Another player making a difference was Josiah Demoss, who rushed for 45 yards and four touchdowns.
Meanwhile, East Hardy never let their opponents score on Friday. They claimed a resounding 39-0 victory over Petersburg on the road. The high flying offensive effort was a huge turnaround for East Hardy's ten-point performance the contest before.
East Hardy can attribute much of their success to Price Strawderman, who rushed for 93 yards and three touchdowns on only 11 carries. The team also got some help courtesy of Tyler Tarallo, who rushed for 86 yards and a touchdown on only ten carries.
St. Marys pushed their record up to 9-1 with that win, which was their sixth straight on the road. That said, the team wasn't facing the toughest opposition over that stretch, as it included 0-10 Calhoun and 1-9 Ravenswood (their opponents had an average overall winning percentage of 21.7% over those games). As for East Hardy, they are on a roll lately: they've won five of their last six matches, which provided a nice bump to their 6-3 record this season.
Saturday's match might be decided on the ground as these two are both standouts in the run game. St. Marys has been unstoppable on the ground this season, having averaged 245 rushing yards per game. However, it's not like East Hardy struggles in that department as they've been averaging 173.9 per game. It's looking like Saturday's matchup might have some serious battles in the trenches. Check MaxPreps after the match for a full breakdown of the game, commentary, and other football content.
St. Marys beat East Hardy 29-21 in their previous meeting back in October of 2022. One of the biggest obstacles trying to stand in the way of that victory was East Hardy's Mason Miller, who rushed for 95 yards and two touchdowns, and also threw for 115 yards and a touchdown. Now that he won't be playing on Saturday, will it be that much easier for St. Marys to walk away with another win? Check MaxPreps.com after the match to find out.
