NEW PALESTINE — It’s been 50 years since Franklin won nine games in a football season. They’d only won one sectional title in program history, 35 years ago.
New Palestine emphatically ensured the visitors would accomplish neither milestone on Friday night, hitting the running clock threshold in the first half of a sectional championship rout.
The Dragons, who have won at least nine games in each of the last seven seasons, pushed their winning streak to 25 games, winning their second straight sectional title with a 49-14 win against the Grizzly Cubs.
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“If we came out here tonight like last week, the score would’ve been completely different,” Dragons running back Charlie Spegal said. “That’s something we really picked up in practice this week. All the errors we made last week, we worked really hard to fix it this week and had a nice week of practice.”
That made for a tough night for the Grizzly Cubs.
Franklin, which won five games in the previous four seasons combined, came into Friday’s sectional championship after their best regular season in decades, a resurgence that saw them go 7-2 and bring an 8-2 record into New Palestine.
The Dragons (11-0) put a quick end to any hopes Franklin (8-3) had of extending their season. They took the opening kickoff and marched right down the field in 11 plays, capped by a 4-yard touchdown run from Charlie Spegal to open the scoring.
That was the first of six first-half touchdowns for the New Palestine offense. Spegal scored on another 4-yard run, then added scampers of 47 and 41 yards. Dragons quarterback Lincoln Roth scored on a 3-yard run and added a passing touchdown to Maxen Hook moments before halftime.
Meanwhile, the New Palestine defense did what it’s been doing all season long. Tasked with slowing a powerful Franklin offense led by standout senior quarterback Drew Byerly, the Dragons came out on fire.
They forced a three-and-out on Franklin’s first possession, then forced Byerly fumbles on the next two drives to help push the lead to running-clock territory.
Byerly, who had protected the ball well all year with just two interceptions thrown, was forced into three turnovers by the New Palestine defense, the two fumbles and an interception by Kade Large.
“That’s a big quarterback. He’s a hard guy to take down and he can move,” New Palestine senior Kyle King said. “If you can shut a team down like that, that hard RPO reading stuff, that’s going to help you in the long run.”
It all started with pressure up front by the Dragons. The New Palestine coaching staff has been hard on the defensive line lately, coach Kyle Ralph said. The staff felt the line had been under-performing near the end of the regular season.
They’ve responded well to the challenge.
“Being able to get on him, which people hadn’t done all year … he’s only thrown two interceptions the whole season, and people had not been able to get near him for a sack,” Ralph said of Byerly. “They’re afraid to put pressure on him because of the RPOs. I felt like our plan was really, really good to combat those things. We kind of cut our defense in half and let the box deal with the running back and the quarterback and the defensive backs deal with covering the RPOs. That allowed us to put pressure on, which a lot of people haven’t tried against them.”
The Dragons held Byerly to 9 of 20 passing for 151 yards, one touchdown and one interception. He rushed 14 times for 50 yards and fumbled the ball away twice.
Spegal paced the New Palestine offense, carrying 26 times for 246 yards and four touchdowns. Roth was 12 of 14 for 128 yards and two touchdowns passing, and he added 57 yards on nine carries and a rushing touchdown.
The win — New Palestine’s 11th sectional championship — sets up a massive regional championship game against Cathedral, who routed Decatur Central on Friday, 42-12. The Irish are ranked No. 1 in Class 5A in the Sagarin computer rankings, while New Palestine is No. 1 in the coach and AP polls.
New Palestine will host Cathedral in a 7 p.m. regional championship game on Friday.
“We’re definitely looking forward to this game,” Spegal said. “To play a team like Cathedral, with all the history they’ve had, it’s going to be amazing.”