The Cathedral Fighting Irish will look to defend their home field on Friday against the Ben Davis Giants at 7:00 p.m. Both teams come into the match bolstered by wins in their previous matches.
It can be hard to translate regular season success to the playoffs, but Cathedral had no problem doing just that on Friday. They took down Lawrence North 20-3. The win made it back-to-back wins for Cathedral.
Jalen Bonds was on fire: he rushed for 262 yards and two touchdowns while picking up 7.9 yards per carry.
Meanwhile, Ben Davis came tearing into Friday's matchup with seven straight wins (a stretch where they outscored their opponents by an average of 22.2 points) and they left with even more momentum. They simply couldn't be stopped as they easily beat Pike 53-0 on the road. Considering Ben Davis has won seven matchups by more than 20 points this season, Friday's blowout was nothing new.
Thomas Gotkowski looked great while leading his team to the win, throwing for 133 yards and two touchdowns while completing 77.8% of his passes, and also punching in a touchdown on the ground. Michael Searcy was another key contributor, picking up 146 receiving yards and a touchdown.
Cathedral pushed their record up to 8-3 with that victory, which was their fifth straight on the road. That said, the team wasn't facing the toughest opposition over that stretch, as it included 0-10 North Central and 4-7 Roncalli (their opponents had an average overall winning percentage of 39.3% over those games). As for Ben Davis, their win bumped their record up to 10-1.
Cathedral was taken down by Ben Davis 51-21 in their previous meeting back in November of 2016. Thankfully for Cathedral, Reese Taylor (who threw for 323 yards and five touchdowns while picking up 12.4 yards per attempt, and also punched in a touchdown on the ground) won't be suiting up this time. Will that be enough to change the final result? There's only one way to find out.
