New Palestine’s Michael Thacker (52) kneels at the end of the bench dejected as they trail 14-7 late in their game against Roncalli.
Rob Baker | For The Daily Reporter
By Brady Extin | Daily Reporter
INDIANAPOLIS — While a 48-minute football game involving countless players took place on Friday night at Roncalli High School, the game can be summed up by just two plays.
Two fourth and one stops in the second half by the Roncalli defense were the catalysts in a 20-7 New Palestine loss in the IHSAA Class 4A Regional 11 championship.
Down 14-7 on both attempts near midfield, the Dragons opted to run up the middle with running back Kyler Kropp, and on both attempts he was met in the backfield by a swarm of red jerseys.
With New Palestine being a team that hangs its hat on winning the battle at the line of scrimmage, it was short and simple for head coach Kyle Ralph to sum up what happened on those two plays.
“Us not moving the line of scrimmage and just not blocking,” he said.
While those two plays are the ones that will surely keep running through the minds of New Palestine players and coaches, the battle up front was won by Roncalli, not just on those two plays, but all night long.
“They just beat us up front. It’s that simple. Their guys did a really nice job on both sides of the ball. They’ve got good players, we’ve got good players, and they won the battle upfront tonight,” Ralph said. “When teams are like us that hang their hat on controlling the line of scrimmage, and you go into a game like that, and they control the line of scrimmage, they’re going to win. It’s that simple.”
Kropp, who ran for 112 yards and three touchdowns in last week’s win over Connersville, was held to just 52 yards.
The Dragons tried to get quarterback Daniel Tippit IV going on the ground as well, but he was limited on both designed runs and scrambles.
“I think the nerves for all the guys never really settled down. I’ve played in a lot of big games, so my nerves were calm,” senior offensive lineman Thomas Wood said. “We had some success early running behind me and Ian [Moore], but once they adjusted the defense they ran some complex stunts over on the left side, and they got me with some of those stunts. They’re a good football team. They’re physical up front, and when they get tired they’ve got some good backups. They’re just a good team, and we never really got settled in.”
It wasn’t just the offensive side of the ball where the Dragons lost the battle in the trenches and couldn’t get settled in.
Defensively, New Palestine was tasked with attempting to shut down the class 4A rushing leader — Luke Hansen. The No. 2 leading rusher in the state entered the game with 2681 yards and 31 touchdowns under his belt.
The Dragons, who had yet to allow a rusher to go for over 100 yards in a game against them all season, were gashed for 203 yards and one touchdown.
The physicality of the Royals offensive line was something that Ralph expected coming into the game, but the Dragons just couldn’t find ways to execute.
“I thought we had a great plan coming in. Maybe it wasn’t as good as we thought it was, but that’s a little bit of hindsight once we watch the film. Maybe we just have to execute better, and do a better job of coaching throughout the week,” Ralph said. “I don’t know what it was, but we did not play the way that we practiced, and that was unfortunate.”
And on offense, it was more of the same.
“I knew they would be physical, but I thought we’d be able to settle in, the nerves would go away, and we would roll. The nerves never really went away for anybody tonight, and we weren’t able to get going,” Wood said. “We were scrambling a lot and had some broken plays. I thought we had a good game plan to milk them out, and they were really tired at the end, but they just played really well, so kudos to them.”
