NEW PALESTINE — The final result was the same, but the game was completely different.
Friday’s Class 4A Sectional 21 quarterfinal football game between longtime rivals New Palestine and Mt. Vernon was a rematch of a Week 4 regular-season game won 56-8 by the Dragons.
In September, New Palestine’s work was done by the middle of the first quarter, leading 28-0 after four touchdowns in just over six minutes.
At Kelso Stadium with the season on the line, the Marauders put a scare into Class 4A’s No. 1 ranked team.
Mt. Vernon kept it a one-score game most of the night until the Dragons recorded the final points of the game with 8:18 to go.
A 13-yard touchdown pass from junior quarterback Jacob Davis to senior wide receiver Austin McMahan sealed a 28-14 win for the 9-0 Dragons.
“They’ve done a great job of improving and they showed that [Friday],” Kyle Ralph said of the Marauders. “… They always do a nice job up there. It’s a competitive program. They won a [state] championship not that long ago and have been very competitive every year since and before. It’s what you expect.
“We didn’t play very well and a lot of that was a credit to them. We made a lot of mistakes you can’t make, missed some opportunities you can’t miss, and gave up massive explosive plays on defense that is not characteristic of what we do.”
New Palestine opened the game as it did in Fortville in September.
The Dragons ended a nine-play, 63-yard drive with a 26-yard touchdown pass from Davis to tight end Garrett Ranes, but this time the Marauders had a quick answer with one of their “massive explosive plays.”
After starting on their own 8 and getting two one-yard rushing plays, sophomore quarterback Mason Meyer found speedy senior wide receiver Ryker Baer behind the defense for a 90-yard touchdown pass.
The point-after was blocked, but the Marauders let the Dragons know they were going to be there for the long haul.
“We threw our entire game plan at them,” Mt. Vernon coach Vince Lidy said. “We tried to use every advantage we could get. Credit to New Pal, they took our best and they made plays, but our kids and our staff, I’m proud of them.
“They’re like us, our defenses play aggressive. … Their front six is as good as anybody in the state and we were able to get protection and throw the ball down the field and made a few plays. We’re fast, that’s where we tried to exploit our speed. They’re up in our faces taking away the short stuff and dare us to throw the ball deep. We made a couple of huge ones.”
Both teams punted on their next possession prior to the Dragons getting a late first-quarter score to take a 14-6 lead.
Starting on the Mt. Vernon 27 after a 21-yard punt return from Cameron Rollyson, New Palestine needed just four plays to finish things off with a Davis 11-yard touchdown run. Jake Wells added the PAT.
In the middle of the second quarter, New Palestine missed a great opportunity to add to its lead. Davis had a 56-yard run on the next offensive series to get the ball to the Mt. Vernon 14, but the Marauders held Dragon running backs Josh Ranes and Gavin Neal to short runs. On fourth-and-1 from the Marauder 5, a bad snap in a shotgun set went for an eight-yard loss and handed the ball over to Mt. Vernon.
The Marauders were unable to score before the half and got themselves in a bigger hole early in the second half.
Six plays into their opening drive, New Pal all-state defensive lineman Michael Thacker got his hand on a Meyer short pass attempt. He tapped it in the air, then caught it and ran 30 yards for a touchdown.
It was his second touchdown of the season. He had fumble recovery for a touchdown in a Week 6 win over Greenfield-Central.
“We switched up our calls and we work on putting our hands up [in practice] all the time,” Thacker said. “If you can’t get to the quarterback, you can swat the ball. I put my hands up and it happened to hit my hands and I took it to the house. I thank God for that.”
“That was a drill we worked on all week long with our defensive line guys about trying to stop their short passing game,” Ralph said. “… It seems silly during the week to run a drill like that, but we had our D-line guys working on reading the quarterback’s motions and then getting their hands up and jumping for passes. You love to see when stuff you do in practices pays off and that paid off huge. Mike, literally, did exactly what we practiced this week and it was an incredible play.”
Both teams punted on their next drives, but the Meyer-to-Baer combination hooked up again on the first play of the fourth quarter.
On a third-and-8 play from the Marauder 45, they went 55 yards — their second longest connection of the season — to cut the New Pal lead to 21-12. A Meyer to Evan Privett pass was completed for a two-point play to make it 21-14 with nearly the entire fourth quarter still to play.
The Dragons scored on their next series to bump the lead to 14 and the Marauders were unable to get back into New Pal territory the rest of the night. New Palestine had another chance to add to its lead in the final minutes, but for the second time they failed on fourth down inside the opponent’s five-yard line.
The 28 points were the least in a game for the Dragons this season.
“They limited our possessions,” Ralph said. “They slowed their pace down a lot and limited our possessions. If you don’t get a lot of possessions you are not going to score a lot unless you are efficient and we weren’t efficient. You can’t end up with empty possessions in these big games.”
Meyer and Baer connected six times for 183 yards. Meyer was, unofficially, 10-for-23 for 208 yards.
“I said all week we had to be in the game at the end of the first quarter and it would be a dogfight for four,” Lidy said. “Going into halftime and we got the ball to start the second half, we were in the game. We just didn’t score enough.
“I told them, you got beat giving your best. If you give them your best and get beat, somebody has to win or lose. I’m not a good loser, but I told these kids I’m proud of them and when they lay their heads down tonight they know they gave everything they had.”
Davis led the Dragon rushing attack with 13 carries for 118 yards.
“It’s always hard to beat a team twice,” Thacker said. “”[Mt. Vernon] gave great effort every play. It put us in a tough situation because everybody was ready to win and go home. Coming in at halftime, everybody locked in got a pep talk and came out and did what we needed to do.”
The Dragons will have to face another team it has already beaten in next week’s semifinals. New Palestine will travel to Yorktown (7-3), a 46-6 winner at Richmond Friday. The Dragons beat the Tigers in Week 3, 41-13.
“If we learned anything, we beat [Mt. Vernon] just now handily in Week 4 and we did not [Friday],” Ralph said. “Hopefully it’s another wake up call for us. Playing the same teams over and over like this is really hard. Beating a team twice is really hard. You give your best effort to win the first game and now you have to find something else in the tank to win the second one.”
New Palestine 28, Mt. Vernon 14
Mt. Vernon (4-6);6;0;0;8;-;14
New Palestine (9-0);14;0;7;7;-;28
Scoring Summary
1st Quarter
NP – Garrett Ranes 26 pass from Jacob Davis (Jake Wells kick), 7:08
MV – Ryker Baer 90 pass from Mason Meyer (PAT blocked), 5:19
NP – Davis 11 run (Wells kick), :54.9
3rd Quarter
NP – Michael Thacker 30 interception return (Wells kick), 8:06
4th Quarter
MV – Baer 55 pass from Meyer (Evan Privett pass from Meyer), 11:52
NP – Austin McMahan 13 pass from Davis (Wells kick), 8:18
