Old-reliable Grayson Thomas scores 5 TDs to lead New Palestine to regional romp

NEW PALESTINE — In the course of six minutes, New Palestine swung Friday's Class 4A regional completely in its favor.

The first three quarters of the game were tame; Mooresville struck first with a field goal from Tyler Church, and New Palestine responded with two touchdowns from Grayson Thomas — one of which was a 33-yarder down the Mooresville sideline, evading defenders and keeping himself in bounds along the way.

"There's a lot that goes through your mind at that one time," Thomas said of his run. "I remember getting to that last safety, and in those situations you want to strike first before they're ready for it."

Mooresville ended the half with another field goal before the break, making the score 12-6 in favor of New Palestine. It wasn't a pretty half, New Palestine coach Kyle Ralph said, but they still managed to lead.

"Credit to them, they had a great plan for us," Ralph said. "We did not play very sharp in the first half. They out-physicaled us a little bit, as well. We started getting some footing late in the second quarter, and we felt like we could start getting going."

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But those exciting six minutes opened the fourth quarter, where New Palestine found the end zone four times, putting the game completely out of Mooresville's reach for a 39-6 win.

Thomas had the hot hand Friday night; once he took advantage of his offensive line's blocking, which had been effective nearly all night, the Dragons turned to him for crucial third down and touchdown punch-ins.

"Obviously, you can't run the ball if you don't block," Ralph said. "(The offensive line) really struggled early on trying to figure out what they were trying to do, but once we got settled in and figured it out, we got a lot better."

Thomas took over in those six minutes, breaking through to the end zone three more times from 2, 10, and 1 yards out to balloon his touchdown total on the night to five.

"I was just running hard," Thomas said. "The line, I got to give a lot of credit to them, and our receivers blocked their tails off."

Malachi Haines finished the scoring for the Dragons as the only player other than Thomas to record a touchdown. While the Dragons were seemingly trying to run down the clock with three minutes left in the game, Haines broke free for a 45-yard touchdown.

It was pure dominance in all three phases out of New Palestine; the Dragons defense had two interceptions on the night, forced three turnovers on downs, and recovered a forced fumble. The special teams unit easily read a kickoff trick play the Pioneers were trying to pull off — Mooresville QB Hogan Denny lined up as a kickoff returner next to usual KR Kaden Bruhn, and after Bruhn fielded the return, he tried to sneak a lateral to Denny. It was short, falling out of Denny's hands, and New Palestine immediately jumped on it — setting the offense up on the 25-yard line.

"It was huge," Thomas said of the Dragons' defense. "When we're still figuring out defensive schemes on offense, we really needed those guys to play with consistency, and they did. They always come up when we need them."

With the win, the Dragons became regional champions for the sixth time in 11 years. It was their first regional championship since 2019, when they went on to be the Class 5A state champions.

The Dragons have moved to 4A since then, but the goal is still the same. They'll head to East Central for semistate, with their goal of making it back to Lucas Oil Stadium at the forefront of their minds.

"Football is a hard sport," Ralph said. "You got to have a lot of talented players, and some luck on your side as well … six regionals in 11 years is absolutely fantastic, I think it just speaks volumes to the amount of great players we've had come through here and how hard our teams work."

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: IHSAA football: Grayson Thomas' 5 TDs paces New Pal past Mooresville