IHSAA 4A Regional football: Second-half surge pushes New Prairie into semistate title game
LOWELL, Ind. — Two broken plays. Two touchdowns. One New Prairie win and a trip to semistate.
“Wild,” Cougar senior Benjamin Fronk described it.
He wasn’t wrong.
The Cougars scored 21 unanswered points in the second half to knock off Lowell, 28-14, and win their third regional in program history. The reward: a home game against Northridge in next week’s semistate.
The Raiders, who upset No. 2 Leo last week, were 25-7 winners over Mississinewa Friday night.
“Kids believed and came in with a plan in that second half and executed at a really high level,” New Prairie coach Casey McKim said. “Message was ‘keep fighting’ and our kids fought. Had some success and that feeds hunger even more to keep fighting. Didn’t matter what the situation was, we were going to keep fighting.”
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The Cougars did just that even after Lowell senior running back Joey Heuer scored the second of his two touchdowns as time expired in the first half to give the Red Devils a 14-7 advantage in what proved to be a smash mouth football game in freezing, snowy conditions.
No. 12 New Prairie opened the second half with a six play, 80-yard drive to begin the second half, essentially hitting the reset button on the game and stopping Lowell from carrying its first-half momentum into the third quarter.
The Red Devils moved the ball to the New Prairie 20 late in the third quarter before failing to convert on fourth-and-short. Failing to score proved costly in the most unlikely of ways.
New Prairie (11-2) dialed up just its third pass call on third-and-long with Fronk running a go route along the sidelines. While jostling for position with Lowell senior defensive back Sean Lamping, the Red Devils’ defender slipped in the mud, leaving Fronk room to grab the ball and scamper into the end zone to put the Cougars up 21-14 with just less than nine minutes left.
“We knew we had it at that point,” Fronk said.
Only it wasn’t over yet. Heuer returned the ensuing kickoff past midfield, but fumbled to give New Prairie the ball again at its own 33. Three plays later, the second broken play came and brought another seven points.
Sophomore QB Marshall Kmiecik dropped back to pass, moving to his left. He missed being able to pull the trigger on a pass to a wide open senior receiver Hayden Clark but managed to turn around, switch field and take off down the sideline for a 67-yard touchdown with less than six minutes left.
“It was a big momentum shift," Kmiecik said. “I saw him open but it was too late to throw and I didn’t want to throw across my body. I ran looking for a first down and ended up with more.”
Kmiecik finished with 23 carries for 185 yards
“It comes down to one or two plays in championship ball games,” Lowell coach Keith Kilmer said. “They made them. We didn’t. They’re moving on, we’re not.”
The Cougars' All-State running Noah Mungia played sparingly in the second half, seemingly as decoy, and only in the fourth quarter. He carried the ball just three times for three yards in the first half.
With the win over Lowell (9-4), New Prairie moves ahead to play Northridge (9-4) in what will be a rematch of the 2014 semistate game that the Cougars won 28-14 en route to a runner-up finish at the state finals.
Fronk says the Cougars will be ready.
“This win means everything,” he said. “We’ll be ready to go next week.”
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Indiana high school football 4A regional New Prairie at Lowell
