NEW PALESTINE — New Palestine is ready for a fight.
Over the course of the Dragons’ 46-game regular season winning streak, they haven’t encountered anything quite like what they will face tonight in Class 6A No. 9 Center Grove.
It’s the first time in school history the Dragons will face a team from 6A, and the first time they face a team from the Metropolitan Interscholastic Conference, widely regarded as the state’s best.
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Five of the state’s Top 10 teams in 6A come from the MIC. Three of the top four in the latest poll are from the conference, with Center Grove the fourth-highest rated of the bunch.
The Trojans bring a winning culture to New Palestine tonight, similar to what the Dragons have established this decade. Center Grove has won seven straight sectional titles and two state titles in the last 10 years.
They, like the Dragons, are a football powerhouse.
“It’s pretty much exactly what you think,” New Palestine coach Kyle Ralph said of Center Grove. “They’re very well-coached, they’re disciplined, they are big, they are physical. They play incredibly hard whistle to whistle.”
That’s not to say the Dragons are intimidated. They’ve seen what Center Grove can bring to the table. They also know they are pretty good themselves.
The results of Ralph’s tenure as their coach have been evidence of that. Last week’s 77-0 win against Kokomo certainly didn’t hurt with their confidence, either.
“I think we take that confidence that we built in Game 1 and we ride it into this game,” junior safety Maxen Hook said. “We showed that we can really play, and I think if we can prove ourselves in this game, we can really put our team and ourselves on the map.”
In order to prove themselves against the Trojans, the Dragons are going to have to combat several things.
First is depth. Center Grove has nearly double the number of players in its football program than the Dragons do. Last week, New Palestine didn’t have to worry about subbing players in and out during drives, as their 10 first-half touchdown drives averaged about three plays each.
This week isn’t likely to be the same. The Dragons and their fans have become somewhat accustomed to the big, game-breaking plays.
Against a team like Center Grove, they aren’t as likely to find so many.
They know they need to be patient and keep working, avoiding the temptation to go for the risky home-run balls that could result in a turnover.
“We have to be satisfied with the minimal to marginal gains,” Ralph said. “You’re not going to rip off huge runs and huge passes against these guys. Offensively you’ve got to be satisfied with four yards is a good play. Eight yards against these guys is a great play.”
The Dragons are preparing for a more grind-it-out type of game tonight.
The scout team has been working hard in practice trying to get the Dragons ready for what they will see from the Trojans.
That has provided a whole new set of challenges, and points to probably the biggest disparity between the two teams — size.
Ralph said last week that his defense wasn’t the biggest out there, but they had speed and were good at utilizing that. Against Center Grove, that will be magnified even more.
The Dragons simply don’t match up on paper with the Trojans.
“Our scout team guys do an absolutely tremendous, tremendous job, but when you’re trying to mirror an offensive line that averages 6-foot-4, 285, and I don’t even have a 6’4”, 285-pound guy in my program, those are the difficult things to overcome in a week like this,” Ralph said.
The size of the program and the size of the players aren’t excuses for the Dragons. Far from it. They are just the realities the team is dealing with this week as they prepare to face something new.
Each game is treated like the most important game of the season, Ralph said. That doesn’t change this week just because of the higher level opponent. The Dragons are working hard, hitting the film room a ton and focusing in on what they need to do to be successful against this week’s opponent.
What they are seeing on the tape is something that you don’t see very often in Indiana high school football anymore. Center Grove employs a wing-T offense, a far cry from the spread offenses seen nowadays.
Center Grove likes to line up and use their size and physicality to dominate the line of scrimmage and pile up rushing yards. They’ve accomplished this to great success over coach Eric Moore’s 19 years.
That’s where the emphasis on watching film has come in this week. The Dragons are putting together a gameplan to combat the wing-T, hopefully forcing the Trojans into third and long situations and into the spread offense.
That, however, is “significantly easier said than done,” Ralph said.
“It’s hard to prepare for in a short period of a time,” Ralph said of the wing-T offense. “They do it so incredibly well. They are so physical with it, so disciplined with it. Defensively, we’ve got to be able to deal with that, to physically withstand their punishment up front from their big guys and obviously be able to get their incredibly, incredibly talented running back on the ground as fast as possible.”
There are several keys to victory that the Dragons have identified. One is protecting the football. Ralph said his team is prepared to punt this week, knowing it’s not likely to score on almost every possession as it was a week ago.
Avoiding the turnovers that prematurely end drives, turnovers that give the Trojans’ offense and star running back Carson Steele more opportunities, is of paramount importance.
Everybody knowing the gameplan, knowing their assignments, is another key to stopping the Trojans’ prolific run game.
“We just do our jobs. Everybody does what their responsibility is,” Hook said. “Nobody tries to be the hero. We just follow the gameplan, and hopefully that leads us to another victory.”
“Everybody has got to know their role, get in their scouting report, understand the formation so we can prepare for if they run spread or wing-T,” junior offensive and defensive lineman Kyle King added.
Tonight will be a good measuring stick for the Dragons. Week 1 was an impressive display, one that earned New Palestine a No. 3 Sagarin rating, No. 2 ranking in the Class 5A state coaches poll and No. 1 ranking in the 5A The Associated Press poll this week.
While New Palestine has to find a way to match up with Center Grove’s size and physicality, Center Grove also has to find a way to slow down the Dragons incredible offense.
It’s a marquee matchup, one of the biggest and most intriguing games of the season in Indiana high school football. It figures to be a slugfest, one that can shed some light on just how good these Dragons are.
“We’re going to find out what we’re made of,” Ralph said. “We’re never going to back down from someone just because of who they are or what they stand for. We’re very proud of who we are and what we stand for. We’ll find something out Friday night about ourselves.”
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Three Hancock County teams play at home tonight, with one on the road for Week 2 action.
Eastern Hancock vs. Wes-Del, 7 p.m.
Mt. Vernon vs. Marion, 7 p.m.
Greenfield-Central at Whiteland, 7:30 p.m.
New Palestine vs. Center Grove, 7:30 p.m.
See a full breakdown of each of the Week 2 games, and area stat leaders from Week 1, on Page B2.
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