INDIANAPOLIS — The smallest school in Class 5A is now its football champion.
The New Palestine Dragons, from a school of fewer than 1,200 students, spent all season playing teams twice their size. By enrollment, they are a mid-4A school at best.
They played a 6A juggernaut in the regular season. They played four of the biggest schools in 5A in the state tournament.
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It didn’t matter. The Dragons ran through everyone that was put in their way, capping an undefeated season with a 14-0 record and a state championship with Saturday’s 28-14 victory against Decatur Central at Lucas Oil Stadium.
They, the smallest of the bunch, are the giants of Class 5A.
“I think a lot of people have been doubting who we are, saying that we don’t play that great of competition,” senior quarterback Zach Neligh said. “I think it’s really just a statement from all of us that we work hard and we do everything we can to get to this one point, to get to the final goal of being a state champion. I think we just showed how great of a football program New Palestine is.”
In their third state championship game in the last six years, the Dragons brought home the championship for the second time.
In 2014, it was a Class 4A trophy. Due to that win and the tournament success factor, they moved up to 5A the following year and fell in the state championship game.
They were determined not to let that happen again. The Dragons have been working toward this particular goal for almost an entire calendar year, from the weight room to the practice field and beyond.
Matched against another bigger, stronger, supposedly more talented team Saturday night, New Palestine played their game, wearing down Decatur Central and clinging to a 14-6 lead with just 1:00 remaining in the first half.
Neligh broke free on a run, picking up 43 yards. He got hammered as he threw on the next play but found Colby Jenkins over the middle for a 30-yard touchdown, putting the Dragons up 21-6.
An interception four plays later by senior linebacker Jacob Hockett — his second of the half — gave New Palestine the ball back with 14 seconds left in the half at the Decatur Central 35-yard line.
Charlie Spegal ran once for eight yards, putting the ball at Decatur’s 27 with :08 left on the clock.
A play that would define a championship, a play that defined an incredible season, came next.
Beast Mode
The play call was fairly simple, as were the instructions.
It was an inside zone run, and New Palestine coach Kyle Ralph had told Spegal to go for it if he got through the line of scrimmage.
The Dragons always want to score. They’ve practiced the 2-minute drill all season long for these situations. But a handoff up the middle isn’t exactly designed as a scoring play from 27 yards out and eight seconds left, as much as the Dragons might want it to be or might claim it was.
“OK, I’ll be honest. It was supposed to be for a field goal,” Neligh eventually admitted. “Obviously, every time you hand the ball off to Charlie, he has a chance to get a touchdown. He runs super hard, our offensive line does a great job and our wide receivers block downfield incredibly. It helps when a guy like Charlie just bulldozes through a bunch of tackles.”
Ralph told his running back that if there was contact, he should just go down so that the team could call timeout and kick a field goal.
Pick up a few yards, get tackled in the middle of the field, kick a field goal and go into the half up 24-6.
That didn’t work for Spegal.
He took the handoff and veered to the right, through his offensive line. As he neared the line of scrimmage, he was met by four Decatur Central defenders, either diving from behind to grab his legs or hitting him from the side.
That probably qualifies as contact. Spegal stayed on his feet, bursting away from all four.
He powered through an attempted leg tackle from a safety, bulldozed a linebacker and slipped past one final defender as he dove for the pylon and the clock struck 00:00.
Touchdown, Dragons.
“Obviously, Charlie’s run there at the end of the half was just absolutely ridiculous,” Ralph said. “I think my heart was literally in my mouth. He got hit about six times and just man-childed that thing to the pylon. I about threw up all over the field on that one.”
His teammates were in awe. They were pumped up.
They saw Spegal run for 3,356 yards this season and an Indiana state record of 70 touchdowns. They witnessed him run over, through and around opponents all season long.
This run in particular, though, was a defining moment.
“I think that’s a good way to sum up Charlie’s season, in that run right there,” junior Maxen Hook said. “I turned around, and I see him run through the guy that I was blocking. Then I turn around, think I’m going to try to get to this guy, and he runs through both of ‘em.”
Spegal himself treated the play like any other. He put his team on his back and carried them to the end zone.
“Man, I was just … No matter what, I’ve just got to keep gaining, keep going for my team,” Spegal said.
As the first half ended and Spegal willed his team to a 28-6 lead, senior linebacker Luke Ely, who received the Eskew Mental Attitude Award after the game, walked up to the junior running back, slapped him on the back and had a simple message for him.
“Nice job,” Ely said. “That was beast mode.”
Red Rage
While Spegal, Neligh and Jenkins combined to put the team ahead three scores at the break, everything came down to the Dragons’ Red Rage defense.
They didn’t disappoint.
The two first-half interceptions by Hockett were huge, helping the offense with fantastic field position. Then, as the offense stalled and the Hawks defense gained traction in the second half, stonewalling the Dragons, the New Palestine defense held its ground.
“We played our hearts out, you know?” junior cornerback Luke Canfield said. “We played all the way to the final whistle like we always do, and we played one heck of a game.”
Decatur Central cut into the lead in the fourth quarter. New Palestine slammed the door from there.
“It was a great feeling knowing that we shut down some major athletes,” junior lineman Kyle King said. “They still made some great plays, but I think overall we did really good and did what we could do with the guys that we’ve got.”
The Dragons defense was in the backfield repeatedly, pressuring Decatur Central quarterback Parker Harrington into mistakes and tipping passes. Senior linebacker C.J. Faubion and King each sacked Harrington, giving King a state-leading 18 sacks for the year.
The defense had eight tackles for a loss and contained the Hawks, holding them well below their season average for points scored in a game.
“We’re never the biggest team, we’re never the fastest team,” Ralph said. “Maybe we don’t have some of the Division 1 players that we’ve been able to shut down, but I’ll take our 11 guys over anybody. They play so well together, they play so hard together, they play unselfishly, and tonight was another incredible example of that.”
Back to work
Winning a state championship was the perfect capstone to the career of the Dragons senior class.
Several members of the team — Ely, Keele, Faubion, Jenkins — played in the 2015 title game.
They and the rest of the senior class end their incredibly successful careers as champions, and they got to do so in front of a massive New Palestine contingent that swarmed Lucas Oil Stadium.
“It’s crazy. It’s an amazing feeling, let me tell you,” Faubion said with tears running down his face. “We worked so hard to get here, and it really paid off.”
The message from the Dragons head coach was simple for those gathered post-game on the field and then at the championship celebration at the school at midnight Saturday.
Don’t let this be the defining moment in your life. Don’t let this be the pinnacle.
It’s all about succeeding in life, not just on a football field. But for the Dragons who will return next year, it’s already time to get back to work. They want more of the football success.
This championship victory is a result of the work the New Palestine football team puts in year-round to build and maintain a winning culture. That won’t stop just because they’ve won another title.
“A lot of these kids were kind of joking, ‘Is the weight room open on Monday?’ They were kind of joking, but seriously, they probably aren’t. They’ll probably be in there on Monday,” Ralph said. “It’s just the attitude of the kids you’re so proud of. A lot of kids nowadays, they just want the end result. They want to get to the end of it. But a lot of them aren’t willing to sacrifice what it actually takes to get there and be able to win one. These kids understand that and they get that. As their head coach, I couldn’t be prouder of that.”
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New Palestine out-gained Decatur Central, barely, finishing with 325 yards to the Hawks’ 317.
The Dragons rushed for 269 yards on the ground, with Charlie Spegal carrying 27 times for 228 yards and 2 TDs and Zach Neligh carrying 19 times for 45 yards and a touchdown.
Neligh also completed three passes for 56 yards and a TD. Colby Jenkins caught two of those passes for 46 yards, while Ryker Large had a catch for 10 yards.
Defensively, Aven Jones led the Dragons in tackles with 10, while Maxen Hook had nine and Jacob Hockett had eight. Hockett had two interceptions, and Kyle King and C.J. Faubion each sacked Decatur Central quarterback Parker Harrington, part of the Dragons eight tackles for a loss.
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New Palestine senior linebacker Luke Ely was named the recipient of the Phil N. Eskew Mental Attitude Award following the Class 5A championship game.
Ely was nominated by his principal and coach and selected by the IHSAA Executive Committee for demonstrating positive mental attitude, scholarship, leadership and athletic ability.
Along with being a defensive leader for the Dragons, he maintained a 4.1 GPA while volunteering for or being a member of multiple clubs and organizations. The Indianapolis Colts presented a $1,000 scholarship to New Palestine in Ely’s name.
“It’s just great going out on top,” Ely said. “We have the best support and fans in the world, so that just makes it even better, seeing the sea of red out there supporting us and cheering us on.”
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See more photos and coverage from the game on Pages B2, B3 and B4.
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