INDIANAPOLIS — New Palestine was able to slow the high-powered Cathedral offense, but it didn’t have a solution for an equally-strong Irish defense.
The Dragons season came to an end at Howard Longshore Stadium on the campus of Arsenal Technical High School Friday with a 23-7 loss to the top-ranked Irish, who are also receiving notice in some national polls, in the Class 5A Regional 7 championship between the schools that have won the last three state titles.
The Dragons finished 8-4 after starting the year 1-3. Cathedral continues with a 12-1 mark and will host New Albany in a semi-state game next week.
“It’s really tough, especially for our seniors,” junior wide receiver/defensive back Blaine Nunnally said. “From where we started, everybody, not in our circle, thought we were done. It’s just amazing for us to be standing here right now. Nobody thought we’d come out of the sectional. We believed in ourselves, our program, our brothers.”
Defensively, the Dragons forced and recovered two fumbles and held the Irish offense under its season average (35.7 points). An impressive feat considering Cathedral started numerous series in Dragon territory.
“I thought our defense played really well,” Nunnally added. “We got put in some tough situations, but we held them. A team like that on offense, they’ve got monsters on side of monsters up front and athletes everywhere. When you hold a Top 50 team in the nation to 23 points, you’ve gotta be doing something right.”
Offensively, the Dragons couldn’t muster anything versus a Cathedral defense that came into the game giving up only 8.2 points per game and only 1.9 yards per rush.
With the rough task of trying to run against a formidable Irish run defense, the Dragons elected to do most of their attacking threw the air.
New Palestine quarterbacks Damon Hockett and Eian Roudebush combined to throw 39 times. Hockett was 13-for-32 for 157 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions. Roudebush, who played much of the second quarter when Hockett went down with an injury, was 4-for-7 for 29 yards.
The Irish put a lot of pressure on Dragon QBs, totaling seven sacks. On the ground, which includes sack yardage, New Palestine had a net of minus-38.
“Our defense was absolutely outstanding tonight,” New Palestine head coach Kyle Ralph said. “Our offense put our defense in maybe some of the worst situations I’ve seen in the game of football. Our defense kept battling and battling and never gave up.”
Cathedral kicker Ben Gomez was three-for-four on field goal attempts and the Irish picked up a pair of first half touchdowns. His 27-yarder in the third quarter were the only three points of the second half for either club.
“To hold them to just three points (in the second half), is a huge testament to our guys on that side of the ball,” Ralph added.
Gomez connected on two first-half field goals. He gave Cathedral a 3-0 lead with a 45-yard field goal with 7:10 left in the first quarter. He made a 26-yarder with 3:51 left until halftime for a 13-7 Irish lead.
In between the Gomez FGs, Cathedral added a 7-yard first-quarter touchdown pass from quarterback Danny O’Neil to tight end Brennan Wooten. At the time, it gave Cathedral a 10-0 lead with 1:07 to go in the opening period.
New Palestine opened the second quarter with a 62-yard touchdown pass from Hockett to junior wide receiver Isaiah Thacker, who caught the ball near midfield and then out-ran the Irish defense. Brendan Tanksley added the PAT to cut the deficit to 10-7 with 11:28 remaining until halftime.
The Dragons got the ball back on an O’Neil fumble, recovered by junior defensive lineman Trey Keele at the New Pal 29.
Worse than going three-and-out on the series, Hockett suffered an injury on a first-down scramble and did not return for the remainder of the first half. Roudebush took snaps the rest of the quarter.
Along with Gomez’s late first half 3-pointer, the Irish added points with a 45-yard touchdown run from senior running back Seth Mencer. He scored with 2:59 remaining in the first half to give Cathedral a 20-7 halftime advantage.
Mencer had 18 carries for 133 yards. O’Neal was 19-for-25 for 160 yards and one touchdown.
The Dragons had three sacks. Both Roudebush and freshman Michael Thacker had two tackles for loss, as well as one sack each. Gus Walling had the other sack. Senior Madix Johnson had 12 total tackles. Michael Thacker had 10.
Isaiah Thacker had six catches for 89 yards. Nunnally had four grabs for 52.
The Dragons were young in 2021. Of the 55-player roster, only 11 are seniors and not all of them were available on Friday. Just five are listed among their starters.
“We’re young. We played (six) seniors tonight. (Cathedral) had more senior starters on defense (10) than we had healthy available seniors on our roster,” Ralph said. “That is not easy to overcome. They are a really veteran team and play like a veteran team. They’re physically mature. They run fast. They hit hard. They executed exceptionally well. On top of all that, they’re really good and extremely well-coached.”
As young as they were, the Dragons picked up a sectional title for the 12th time in program history last week. It was the sixth since 2013, when Ralph became head coach.
The loss against the Irish put an end to the Dragons seven-game winning streak and evened the all-time series with the Irish at 2-2. All four games were in the regional round of the post season.
“It’s easy to be 1-3 and say here we go again. It’s going to be a bad year, who cares,” Ralph added. “You see a lot of teams in that scenario fold up shop and go home. This group didn’t do that. It’s a huge credit to them. When we made changes to how we practice and how we do things, structurally, it was a major challenge to our team. They answered that challenge exceptionally well. I’m really proud of that.
“We made things hard on them. It was a big gut-check for our kids. Their buy-in to that is what got us here and I’m proud of that.”
Cathedral 23, New Palestine 7
NEW PALESTINE (8-4);0;7;0;0;—;7
CATHEDRAL (12-1);10;10;3;0;—;23
C—Ben Gomez 45 FG, 7:10
C—Brennan Wooten 7 pass from Danny O’Neil (Gomez kick),1:07
NP—Isaiah Thacker 62 pass from Damon Hockett (Brendan Tanksley kick),11:38
C—Gomez 26 FG, 3:51
C—Seth Mencer 45 run (Gomez kick), 2:59
C—Gomez 27 FG, 6:55
