Preview: New Castle Trojans vs. New Palestine Dragons
New Castle has enjoyed a three-game homestand but will soon have to dust off their road jerseys. They will challenge The New Palestine Dragons at 7:00 p.m. on Friday. Hopefully New Castle focused on turnovers this week since the team gave up four on Friday.
Last Friday, New Castle was the victim of a rough 44-20 defeat at the hands of Greenfield-Central. While losing is never fun, New Castle can't take it too hard given the team's big disadvantage in MaxPreps' Indiana football rankings (they are ranked 154th, while Greenfield-Central is ranked 32nd).
Although New Castle took the loss, they still got scores from Darin Reynolds, Neil McMartin, and Tyson Lewis.
Meanwhile, New Palestine had already won six in a row (a stretch where they outscored their opponents by an average of 21.5 points), and they went ahead and made it seven on Friday. They blew past Delta 38-7 on the road. With New Palestine ahead 21-0 at the half, the matchup was all but over already.
Kyler Kropp and Grayson Thomas were among the main playmakers for New Palestine as the former gained 101 total yards and three touchdowns and the latter rushed for 243 yards and two touchdowns while picking up 9.0 yards per carry. Thomas was no stranger to the big play, turning on the jets for a run that went for 53 yards.
The team's defense also helped out by holding Delta to a paltry 127 yards. A big part of that defensive dominance came down to New Palestine's ability to keep the quarterback under pressure: the team laid him out four times before it was all said and done. Leading the way was Michael Thacker and his 2.5 sacks.
New Castle's loss was their fourth straight at home, which dropped their overall record down to 1-8. Admittedly, the team was facing some tough opposition over that stretch, including 7-2 New Palestine and 5-4 Mt. Vernon (their opponents had an average overall winning percentage of 63.9% over those games). As for New Palestine, their win on Friday bumped their record up to 7-2.
New Castle was taken down by New Palestine 35-7 when the teams last played two weeks ago. Can New Castle avenge their defeat or is history doomed to repeat itself? We'll find out soon enough.
