Dragons football picks up fourth Class 5A sectional crown

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The New Palestine Dragons celebrate by holding the sectional trophy after beating Whiteland 20-17 during the Sectional 14 championship game at New Palestine High School on Friday, Nov. 5, 2021. (Rob Baker | Daily Reporter)

NEW PALESTINE — The small town kids with the big-time football program have done it again.

New Palestine, playing a class above its enrollment level due to the IHSAA tournament success factor since 2015, won its fourth Class 5A sectional at Kelso Stadium, Friday.

Whiteland senior kicker David Mathis missed an attempt on a game-tying 30-yard field goal with 27.4 seconds left and the Dragons defeated the Warriors 20-17.

It’s the program’s 12th sectional championship and third in the last five years. In 2018 and 2019, the Dragons went on to win the Class 5A state title. This was the Dragons sixth appearance in a Class 5A sectional championship game.

“You’d be extremely hard-pressed to find a program that’s a public school that has played up as long as we have and been as consistent as we have,” New Palestine head coach Kyle Ralph. “We’re the smallest public school in the division and we’ve been the smallest school for seven years. We’ve won a couple sectionals, won two state championships up here and we have an extremely young team that just won another 5A sectional championship. You cannot be prouder of what our young men in this community do to put us up at that level consistently.”

The Dragons (8-3) will travel to No. 1 Cathedral (11-1) for one of four Class 5A regionals next Friday.

The win over Whiteland, which beat the Dragons 48-13 in last year’s sectional title game, was the Dragons seventh in a row.

“I expected we were going to overtime,” New Palestine senior defensive back Madix Johnson said. “I was mentally preparing to go to overtime. Then, I saw (the kick) go left. I couldn’t tell if it was good or not. I looked at the ref and he gave the no-good sign and I just went crazy.

“My freshman and sophomore year, we won state. I was a part of those teams, but I didn’t play much. To get a sectional championship of our own, means the world to me. I’m on Cloud 9.”

New Palestine trailed most of the game.

Its first lead was the game-deciding touchdown from senior quarterback Damon Hockett.

Trailing 17-13 with 4:59 remaining in the third quarter, the Dragons took over on their own 33. Nine plays later Hockett scored on an 8-yard run. Brendan Tanksley added the PAT for a 20-17 lead with 1:06 remaining in the third period. Hockett had two big runs on the drive, a 10-yarder to get to the Whiteland 38 and a 21-yard sprint to the Warrior 7.

“It was a quarterback call for me to run the ball,” Hockett said of the game-winner. “Coach trusted me and I came back saw the hole and I just went for it. The line blocked it up really well for me.

“(Winning a 5A sectional) is big. All of these 5A schools have guys that can go only one way with different guys starting on offense and different guys starting on defense. We have to have guys go both ways and we still compete. It just shows how we train hard in the off-season for this.”

The Dragons were hoping to put the game away on their final fourth quarter possession. They got to the Whiteland 26 and had second-and-1, but the Warrior defense held and the Dragons turned it over on downs, giving the visitors one final chance with 7:27 left in the game.

Whiteland got to the New Pal 13. Johnson defended a pass in the end zone to force fourth down and the missed field goal followed.

“I thought we came out a little jittery (on defense), a little bouncy and played a little spooked,” New Palestine linebacker Gus Walling, who had a big sack of Whiteland quarterback Kevin Denham on the last drive, said. “Once we figured out what they were doing, got the formations down, it was lights out after that.”

Whiteland scored on its first two possessions of the game, both coming on big plays, and led 14-7 at the end of the first quarter.

On fourth down and inches from the New Palestine 45, Denham, on a sneak, got more than the yards needed for a first down. He broke through the rugby scrum for a touchdown. Mathis added the point-after for a 7-0 Whiteland lead with 7:05 remaining in the opening period.

New Palestine answered with its own fourth-down score. A 12-play, 73-yard drive ended with a fourth-down conversion from the Warrior 1. Sophomore running back Grayson Thomas scored and with Tanksley’s extra-point kick, the Dragons tied the game 7-7 with 1:35 left in the first.

The tie didn’t last long.

On Whiteland’s first offensive play Quinn Warweg went 81 yards for a touchdown. With the point-after from Mathis, the Warriors regained the lead, 14-7 with 1:16 on the first-quarter clock.

Neither team found the end zone in the second quarter, but the Dragons cut into the Warriors lead with a pair of Tanksley field goals.

Hockett had a 41-yard run on the next series to get New Pal to the Whiteland 17. The Dragons were only able to get three more yards and Tanksley came on to kick a 31-yarder to cut the deficit to 14-10 with 11:08 until halftime.

On their next drive, the Dragons moved the ball well, getting to the Whiteland 3, but the play that got them deep into Warrior territory, an 11-yard pass from Hockett to Caleb Byers, ended in a fumble recovered by the defense.

The Dragons got the ball back one more time before the half. Starting from their own 47 with just 1:22 left, they got to the Whiteland 10 and picked up three more points on a Tanksley 27-yarder with 2.8 seconds to go.

After its two big first-quarter scoring plays, the Warriors added just three more points. Mathis hit a 30-yard field goal on the first series of the second half to extend his team’s lead to 17-13 with 4:59 left in the quarter.

Hockett finished with 15 carries for 122 yards. Thomas had 22 totes for 90 yards. Hockett was 10-of-14 passing for 96 yards.

New Palestine 20, Whiteland 17 

WHITELAND (6-4);14;0;3;0;—;17 

NEW PALESTINE (8-3);7;6;7;0;—;20 

W—Kevin Denham 45 run (David Mathis kick),7:05

NP—Grayson Thomas 1 run (Brendan Tanksley kick),1:35

W—Quinn Warweg 81 run (Mathis kick),1:16

NP—Tanksley 31 FG, 11:08

NP—Tanksley 27 FG,:02.8

W—Mathis 30 FG, 4:59

NP—Damon Hockett 8 run (Tanksley kick), 1:06