IHSAA football What We Learned: Balanced Brownsburg, cardiac Decatur Central, more surprises

Five things we learned from Week 2 of the high school football season:

Balance will help Brownsburg

Cathedral coach Bill Peebles had some questions about his secondary going into the season. Those concerns came to the forefront on Brownsburg’s first play from scrimmage Friday night when Jake Dunn fired a pass over the top of the Irish defense to a wide-open Cayden Olinger for an 80-yard touchdown.

“They exposed our secondary, for sure,” Peebles said. “That’s an area we have concerns about. And they exploited it (tonight).”

I wrote about it in Friday night’s story from Brownsburg’s 45-31 win over Cathedral, but it bears mentioning again how important it is for the 6A fifth-ranked Bulldogs to have an offense that can both throw and run efficiently. Dunn was 11-for-15 for 258 yards and three touchdowns in the win over the Irish, hooking up with Olinger (six catches, 126 yards, two TDs) and Minnesota-bound Corey Smith (four catches, 123 yards, one TD) and making it look relatively easy.

Brownsburg’s strength on offense figured to be — and is — the running of senior Garrett Sherrell, who pounded away for 185 yards on 27 carries. But if Dunn can continue to operate as efficiently as Friday, opposing defenses will be unable to hone in on Sherrell. Dunn also provides a spark in the running game, picking up 62 yards and a touchdown on 13 carries.

“You’re always a little nervous going into a game,” Dunn said. “But once you throw a touchdown, the butterflies calm down and I think the whole team was confident. I’m surrounded (by talent) all over the place. The defense is full of studs. I just have to do my job because I know these guys are going to do their job. I think we can win any game with the guys we’ve got.”

That offensive balance is so important, especially against top teams in 6A. Brownsburg will run into a gauntlet of good teams in the Hoosier Crossroads Conference, starting at home against Franklin Central (2-0) this week. Dunn proved Friday he can keep defenses honest.

The cardiac Hawks

If you are going to beat Decatur Central this year, you better make sure to finish off the Hawks.

Decatur Central rallied from a fourth-quarter deficit to score two touchdowns in the final three minutes for a 18-14 win at Columbus North in Week 1. For an encore, the 5A eighth-ranked Hawks scored 10 points in the final five minutes for a 43-42 win over 4A No. 6 New Palestine Friday night in the home opener.

Bo Polston, Decatur Central’s sophomore quarterback, was 28-for-41 for 374 yards and two touchdowns through the air and ran for 67 yards and a touchdown.

Polston, who has offers from Akron, Central Michigan, Indiana, Marshall and Toledo, lost nearly 20 pounds in June and was hospitalized with what was later diagnosed as ulcerative colitis, which causes inflammation and ulcers in the inner lining of the large intestine.

“He’s a really strong, healthy kid,” his father, Dustin Polston, said. “We thought it was just a normal sickness, but he continued to get worse and we were just trying to stay positive and get answers.”

Polston was scheduled to go on a visit to Purdue in June, the same day he started feeling sick. At a practice the following day, he could not keep himself from throwing up. Two trips to the emergency room followed before Polston was finally sent to Riley Children’s Hospital.

“He’s a pretty tough kid,” Dustin Polston said. “So we knew it was something pretty serious to have him down like that.”

Since the diagnosis, Polston has been receiving monthly infusions “that seem to be helping so far and he’s doing a lot better,” Dustin said. The Hawks, coming off last year’s 4-7 season, are again trending in the right direction going into a huge Mid-State Conference game Friday at 5A second-ranked Whiteland.

Five surprises from Week 2

>> I’m never going to be surprised when Center Grove wins a game, but the Trojans’ 28-10 win over three-time defending Class 6A state champion Tennessee merits a mention. I had some questions about 6A third-ranked Center Grove after last week’s 27-10 loss to St. Edward (Ohio) in Canton, but that result obviously had a lot to do with the size and talent of the two-time defending Division I champions out of Ohio.

The Center Grove defense held Oakland to 209 yards of total offense and forced three turnovers (including interceptions from Luke Barrett and Michael Soderdahl for a second consecutive week). Nate Johnson (12 tackles), Owen Bright (11) and Ryder Woolwine (10) were all in double digits in tackles.

But maybe more important was the offense passed a big test. Tyler Cherry was 18-for-22 for 287 yards and three touchdowns, including six of those for 107 yards and two TDs to Noah Coy. One area of concern might be the ground game, which produced only 95 yards and 3.8 yards per carry after going for 74 yards against St. Edward.

The three-time defending 6A champs welcome Louisville Trinity this week. Trinity, ranked third in 6A in Kentucky, is coming off a 17-14 loss to fourth-ranked Frederick Douglass.

>> Greenwood is 2-0 for the first time in three years and has already eclipsed its win total from last season for first-year coach Justin Boser. The Woodmen put Indian Creek away in the fourth quarter on two touchdowns runs by Alan Burnett (165 rushing yards) and got another big game from Brock Riddle, who threw for 238 yards and three TDs. Greenwood’s Mid-State Conference opener this week is at Martinsville.

>> Eastern Hancock looks like a team that could make some noise, improving to 2-0 with a 36-14 win over a North Decatur team that was 13-1 last year and reached the Class A semistate. The Royals outscored North Decatur 22-0 in the second half as Mark Kube ran for three second-half touchdowns and 164 yards for the game. Class 2A Eastern Hancock is at 3A Centerville (2-0) this Friday.

>> I was a little surprised to see 4A fifth-ranked Kokomo handle 5A second-ranked Whiteland, 27-13. Whiteland, last year’s 5A runner-up, is normally the team that controls the ball on the ground. But the Warriors were limited to 133 rushing yards and just 43 overall offensive plays. Kokomo ran for 294 yards and quarterback Reis Beard ran for three TDs.

>> Frankton beat rival Lapel 38-37 in overtime to snap a 13-game losing streak in the series. Sophomore Nate Luzadder ran for 179 yards and five touchdowns on 36 carries for Frankton, which is 1-1 and looking for its first winning season since 2017. Lapel missed an extra point in overtime that would have sent the game to a second overtime.

Points raining from sky at Lawrence Central

They don’t get any wilder than Class 6A sixth-ranked Westfield’s 59-58 overtime win over Lawrence Central. The Shamrocks finally ended it on a 2-point conversion run by Kendall Garnett III in overtime that followed a touchdown pass from Jackson Gilbert to Parker Knott on the final play of regulation to send the game to overtime.

Westfield coach Jake Gilbert told our Brian Haenchen he felt good about the 2-point conversion call, which followed a fourth-down touchdown run by Garnett in overtime.

“Obviously, it was a hot game, a lot of points scored, guys were cramping,” Gilbert said. “We were confident that we could continue to score. That’s why we didn’t go for two earlier in the game. But that’s why I went in overtime instead of going for two at the end of regulation, because I thought their defense was tired. If we could just muster one stop, then maybe we could score. I wanted to give our defense a chance in the red zone. With it being a little more condensed I thought we could defend them better, but it didn’t really matter. They still scored.”

Westfield rolled up 459 yards of offense on 82 total plays. Jackson Gilbert was 21-for-31 passing for 270 yards and three TDs. Lawrence Central kept up, getting big plays on offense from quarterback Bryson Luter and receiver Ahmaad Duff. Tight end Nizyi Davis, a 6-6 junior and key player on the Bears’ basketball team, made several big catches — including two on 2-point conversions — and a few crushing blocks.

“I feel like a star was born tonight,” Lawrence Central coach Will Patterson said of Davis. “He’s a guy we share with basketball. I think he’s ready for a breakout year. And Bryson found him, and he made plays for us.”

Lawrence Central plays rival Lawrence North on Friday night at Lucas Oil Stadium. Westfield is at Zionsville.

Other crazy games

The scoring bonanza was not limited to Westfield-Lawrence Central. The oppressive heat and humidity, which pushed kickoff back 30 minutes or an hour at several games, clearly did not hold back the offenses.

Westfield-Lawrence Central was the highest-scoring game of the night with 117 points. In addition to aforementioned Brownsburg-Cathedral, Westfield-Lawrence Central and Decatur Central-New Palestine and Frankton-Lapel, a few of the craziest games from Friday:

>> Mt. Vernon rallied from a 12-point fourth-quarter deficit to defeat Franklin 41-38, scoring on touchdown runs by quarterback Luke Ertel and Joliba Brogan (155 rushing yards).

>> Eastern (Greentown) defeated Northwestern 60-31 in a game that featured nearly 1,000 yards of total offense.

>> Southmont scored 49 consecutive points for a 56-33 win over North Putnam as Wyatt Woodall ran for 205 yards and three touchdowns. The teams combined for 820 yards of offense.

I counted 18 games around the state that had at least 70 combined points. Maybe the cooler temperatures will cool things off.

Call Star reporter Kyle Neddenriep at (317) 444-6649.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indiana high school football: What we learned from Week 2