Whiteland’s Gunnar Hicks runs the ball during Friday’s sectional final against visiting Terre Haute South.
Chris Williams | For the Daily Journal
Slate Valentine didn’t match his 286-yard rushing output from last week’s sectional semifinal win.
Not quite, anyway.
Whiteland’s junior workhorse carried the ball a career-high 39 times for 261 yards and two touchdowns, helping his team grind its way to a 34-10 victory over Terre Haute South in a Class 5A sectional final on Friday night.
The Warriors (7-4), the state runners-up a year ago, will travel to Mid-State Conference rival Decatur Central for a regional battle next week. The two teams met in Week 3 of the regular season, with Whiteland earning a 31-15 home win.
“All I think about is if I keep running, it’s going to be good things at the end of the game,” Valentine said.
Friday’s first possession set the tone for Whiteland — 80 yards in 10 plays, all of them on the ground. Slate Valentine did much of the heavy lifting, carrying seven times for 66 yards, to set up a 1-yard quarterback keeper by Ollie Taylor. After Terre Haute South punted, narrowly missing out on pinning the ball inside the 5-yard line, Whiteland’s offense went back to work and chewed up another 80 yards. The second trip up the field, which used up more than seven minutes and took 13 plays, ended when Gunnar Hicks ran it in from 3 yards out to make it 14-0 just 45 seconds into the second quarter.
Terre Haute South, which had the ball for just 89 seconds in the first quarter, mustered a response to the second Warrior touchdown, though not quite the type it desired. Brady Wilson’s 40-yard pass to A.J. Watkins set up first and goal at the 4, but Whiteland’s defense held up at the goal line and the Braves settled for a 22-yard Griffin Runyan field goal with 6:18 remaining in the half.
Each team’s next possession ended in a turnover. The Warriors drove into the red zone before an offensive face mask penalty set up fourth and long; they came up short on fourth down, giving Terre Haute South the ball back on its own 6-yard line with 1:18 on the clock. The Braves got out near midfield Whiteland linebacker Jordan Palmer forced a fumble, which was recovered by Clayton Ratliff.
Noah Pope’s 34-yard field goal try as time expired went wide left, and Whiteland took a 14-3 lead into the intermission.
After forcing a punt to start the second half, the Warriors put together a nine-play scoring drive, capped when Andrian Kolleigbo turned his lone touch of the game into a 16-yard touchdown run. The Braves blocked the extra point and then cut the deficit to 20-10 when Wilson hit Chris Herrin for a 9-yard TD, but the rest of the night belonged to Whiteland.
Valentine pushed the lead back to three scores with a 4-yard touchdown run at the 9:59 mark of the fourth. Palmer then snuffed out a Terre Haute South drive by intercepting a pass less than two minutes later, and the Warriors killed off most of the remaining clock with an 11-play, 68-yard march that Valentine finished off from 6 yards out with 1:37 left.
Whiteland amassed 426 yards of offense, every last one of them on the ground.
Next up is a rematch with the seventh-ranked Hawks, who have won their last seven games and are always a formidable foe.
“They’re a better team than they were when we played them,” Valentine said, “but hey, if we just keep playing like how we’re playing, I think we’ll do just fine.”
