West Columbus is 0-7 against St. Pauls since October of 2014 but they'll have a chance to close the gap a little bit on Friday. The West Columbus Vikings will welcome the St. Pauls Bulldogs at 7:30 p.m. Both are strolling into their games after big wins in their previous games.
West Columbus took a loss when they played away from home back in August, but their home fans gave them all the motivation they needed on Friday. They claimed a resounding 42-8 win over West Bladen at home. The high-flying offensive performance was a huge turnaround for the Vikings considering their eight-point performance the contest before.
Meanwhile, St. Pauls made easy work of South Brunswick on Friday and carried off a 48-23 victory.
Yoshua Mcbryde had a dynamite game for St. Pauls, rushing for 257 yards and three touchdowns while picking up 16.1 yards per carry. Mcbryde really tore up the turf during one magnificent 80-yard run. Theophilus (Theo) Setzer was another key player, throwing for 232 yards and three touchdowns while completing 78.9% of his passes.
Perhaps unsurprisingly given the score, St. Pauls was unstoppable on the ground and finished the game with 329 rushing yards. That strong performance was nothing new for the team: they've now rushed for at least 208 rushing yards in five consecutive matchups dating back to last season.
West Columbus' win was their ninth straight at home dating back to last season, which pushed their record up to 1-1. As for St. Pauls, they now have a winning record of 2-1.
West Columbus couldn't quite finish off St. Pauls when the teams last played back in September of 2023 and fell 14-12. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of Setzer, who rushed for 74 yards and a touchdown on only nine carries, and also threw for 131 yards on 12 of 32 attempts. Now that West Columbus knows the damage he can cause, will they be able to stop him this time? There's only one way to find out.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
