INDIANAPOLIS
No matter what mere mortals do, the forces of nature have proven undefeated over time. Dams can hold back advancing waters for a time, but eventually they get overwhelmed.
So it was for Ben Davis during Friday night’s Class 6A semistate game against No. 1 Center Grove. The host team tried gamely to play the role of giant-killer, but the Trojans wound up killing the Giants in the second half, pulling away for a 48-13 victory.
Center Grove (13-0) will play second-ranked Westfield for the state championship next weekend at Lucas Oil Stadium.
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With the game deadlocked at halftime, the Trojans went back to what they do best, attacking and wrapping up defensively and hammering away at the Giants with a dominating ground game. Center Grove ran 32 offensive plays in the second half, all of them on the ground.
"We just wanted to get more physical," Trojans coach Eric Moore said. "We had some three-and-outs, and that’s just totally unlike us. Defense was not getting some stops the way — it was just totally unlike us. You’ve seen our games; I didn’t even know this football team in the first half. The third quarter was the team that’s been here all year."
The Giants (7-6) had come in having won five games in a row, including a regional upset of Carmel, after a 2-5 start, and they played the role of plucky underdog well during a 13-13 first half, but the rest of the game belonged to the Trojans.
After the defense forced a Ben Davis three-and-out to start the third quarter, Center Grove took the lead for good with a nine-play, 58-yard touchdown drive that was capped by a strong 10-yard run from Daniel Weems. A fumble on the ensuing kickoff was recovered by the Trojans’ Lucas Hoffman at the Giants’ 30-yard line, setting up a 4-yard scoring run by Carson Steele with 4:31 left in the period.
A third-down sack by Trey Clark pushed Ben Davis back near its own goal line, giving Center Grove another short field after the punt. Steele cashed in from a yard out with 1:03 to go in the third, and after an Austin Booker strip sack gave the Trojans the ball back at the Giants’ 36, defensive end Caden Curry got in on the scoring for the second week in a row, leaping in over (or perhaps more around) the goal-line pileup for a 1-yard TD of his own.
Steele capped the scoring with another 1-yard touchdown rush with 5:31 remaining. The senior ran the ball 29 times for 141 yards.
Weems, who rushed for 152 yards on just 14 carries, credited the offensive line for making life much easier for he and Steele.
"So much easier," he said. "I see it’s open, just make the play. Get it going. Move the chains, move the chains."
At the outset, Center Grove appeared to be on its way to another blowout victory when Weems took a handoff and went 46 yards untouched to the end zone just 81 seconds into the game. But the Giants blocked the extra-point attempt and answered back with a touchdown drive of their own.
J’uan Swanson connected with Rylen Richardson for a 53-yard pass to get Ben Davis into the red zone, and after a pass interference flag wiped out what would have been a diving tip-drill interception by Clark, Swanson hit Dillon Moore from 8 yards out to tie it up.
The Ben Davis defense stiffened up, forcing the Trojans to punt three times in a row before the visitors finally put another scoring drive together midway through the second quarter. Back-to-back runs of 18 yards by Weems and 22 yards by Steele set up a first and goal at the 5, and Tayven Jackson then rolled out on third down and found a wide-open Weems for a 2-yard touchdown with 3:50 to go in the half.
A third-down stop by Clark on the next Ben Davis possession appeared to put the Trojans in good position to get the ball back, but the Giants gambled on fourth and 2 from their own 33 and it paid off big. Donell Mason hauled in a screen pass from Swanson and bolted 67 yards up the right sideline. That big play at the 2:41 mark sent the two teams into the break tied at 13-13.
It also served as a wake-up call for the Trojans, who allowed just nine yards of offense in the second half after getting outgained 195-140 in the first.
"We just couldn’t tackle," Clark said of the surprisingly slow start. "Like on that one little screen play, we just didn’t tackle, and then on the long pass … I don’t even know what happened there. But we came back in the second half, and we just knew that we couldn’t let anybody get behind us. We had to make sure we were wrapping up on our tackles and everything."
The next order of business will be wrapping up a state championship after coming up just short in last year’s title game against Carmel.
"We should be ready to go this week," Weems said, "especially with that feeling of last year in the back of our heads. We’re ready this time. We’re ready to get that win and get that blue ring. Not the red ring. The blue ring."
