Second-half surge propels Class 4A, No. 1 New Palestine to HHC win over gritty Shelbyville squad

Postseason success for New Palestine and Shelbyville may hinge on how each program reacts to Friday night's Hoosier Heritage Conference game at J.M. McKeand Stadium.

Class 4A, No. 1 New Palestine won 35-0, its 12^th-straight win over the Golden Bears and 24^th-straight HHC win. But how the Dragons won was disconcerting to head coach Kyle Ralph, who was quick to praise the effort of a Shelbyville team who entered the game as a 55-point underdog.

“Call it what it is, we just didn’t play well,” said Ralph, who is now 133-14 in 12 seasons at New Palestine. “Trap games, not trap games, big games, it doesn’t matter. We talk to our kids all the time about being the most excited team to play every week and I think we’ve done that for six weeks in a row and this week we did not. It’s embarrassing.

“We have a huge standard at our school to uphold, what our tradition is, what our program is, what it means to be a Dragon football player and we fell well short of that bar tonight.”

Shelbyville head coach Scott Fitzgerald has been trying to get his team to execute better and play with an “edge.” Friday’s defensive effort limited a team averaging 45 points per game to just 14 points in the first half.

“We talked about being in the right positions and doing the right things. Guys staying where they were supposed to stay and doing their jobs, then bringing physicality,” said Fitzgerald (photo). “I thought we matched what they had at that point. That’s what we told them at halftime. You just played with the No. 1 team in the state. That’s the best team you are going to see all year long.

“I am so proud. I am proud of the guys’ effort, their fight again knowing what they were going up against and not being scared and just coming out and playing hard.”

New Palestine was coming off an emotional 35-0 win over top-10 ranked Greenfield-Central one week earlier and brought little intensity to McKeand Stadium.

“It’s not a trap game because you should be excited to play every single week,” said Ralph. “I don’t buy much into that stuff. Again, it’s from me all the way down to our coaches all the way down to our players. We have to flat out be better and be better prepared and execute better on a Friday night.”

The Dragons have state championship expectations and, potentially, learned a lesson Friday night from a Golden Bears program that is struggling with consistency.

“(Shelbyville) is rebuilding but doing a great job of it,” said Ralph. “They have a couple of good players over there, they are young and their kids play really hard.

“We tell our kids you are going to be everybody’s Super Bowl. As long as you’re in the lead in the conference and as long as you’ve got a No. 1 ranking in front of your name, you are going to be everyone’s Super Bowl. There is nothing that anyone would love more than to knock you off. We did not play like a champion tonight and, again, that’s on me.”

New Palestine had five first-half possessions Friday, punted twice, scored twice and was stopped on a fourth down run inside the Shelbyville 10.

“I give a lot of credit to them. (Coach Fitzgerald) had his kids ready to go,” said Ralph. “They played their butts off. I think the game wore on them in the second half late, but he does a great job.

“Their kids played with a boat load of energy, they are young and they play tough. Again, they are in that rebuilding phase right now but he has things going the right direction. They took it to us early. There is no other way to put it other than they were better prepared than we were tonight and their kids flat out executed and played harder than us early on and that just should not happen if you are supposed to be what we are supposed to be.”

New Palestine put together a 10-play, 55-yard scoring drive that ended with quarterback Jacob Davis scrambling to extend a red-zone play that ended with him finding Garrett Ranes in the back of the end zone for a 7-0 lead.

An Avery Murnan sack to start New Palestine’s next series stifled the series and resulted in another punt.

A 9-play drive on its next series ended with Caden Jacobia scoring from eight yards out to make it 14-0.

New Palestine’s final drive of the half ended with a broken play on fourth down that fell short of the first-down marker.

“We got overwhelmed at times which we knew we were going to but we made them work the ball just about every time,” said Fitzgerald. “We didn’t allow the big play. They had a couple of opportunities and didn’t and that happens sometimes too.”

Shelbyville’s offense twice trekked inside the New Palestine 20 but had fourth-down plays stopped.

Later in the third quarter, Shelbyville starting quarterback Tyler Gwinnup (photo) was injured on a sack and did not return to the game. He watched the rest of the game from the sideline with ice on his left knee.

“We will see what it is. We are not really sure right now,” said Fitzgerald.

Sophomore Jackson Myers (photo) directed the offense on its final two series but did not attempt a pass.

“He got out there and did what we needed him to do and we will adjust and see what we need to do from here,” said Fitzgerald.

New Palestine scored on three-straight possessions in the second half to finally pull away. Josh Ranes had scoring runs of 70 and 12 yards in the third quarter to double the lead.

Jacobia added a 3-yard scoring run in the fourth quarter for his second touchdown of the game.

The Dragons racked up 227 yards rushing. Josh Ranes led the way with 120 yards on nine carries.

Davis completed 12 of 18 pass attempts for 147 yards.

Donavon Martin led Shelbyville with 21 rushes on 14 attempts. Gwinnup was 5-for-13 for 50 yards before being injured.

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