PENDLETON — Pendleton Heights extended its winning streak to three Friday, but the Arabians know the tasks are starting to get a lot tougher.
With a 47-6 victory against Greenfield-Central at John Broughton Field on Homecoming night, Pendleton Heights improved to 3-1 overall (2-0, Hoosier Heritage Conference).
The Arabians are one of three teams that are 2-0 in conference play. They’ll play the other two in the next three weeks: At Class 5A defending state champion New Palestine this Friday and Delta at home on Oct. 4.
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The Arabians will play Mt. Vernon in between, at Fortville. The Marauders are 3-1 overall (1-1, HHC) with the lone loss against New Palestine.
“Now it’s on to a gauntlet of our season,” Pendleton Heights coach Jed Richman said. “We have a lot of good teams ahead of us, and we just have to keep taking it day by day.”
After opening the season with a 26-21 win against Mississinewa, the Arabians have won three straight, beating Anderson and conference opponents New Castle and Greenfield-Central by a combined score of 134-16.
Though impressive in wins over the last three Fridays, Richman knows the job will be difficult against New Palestine, a team that has won 43 straight HHC contests.
The Dragons beat the Arabians 42-21 last year. It was NP’s closest regular-season game on the way to a perfect 14-0 campaign and second state title in the past five years.
“We have a lot of respect (for New Palestine),” Richman said. “It sounds cliché, but we need to worry about us. If we don’t fix some things from (Friday), it doesn’t matter who we play next week. There are a lot of things out here masked by effort, which is something I am real proud of, we played hard. We definitely didn’t execute at times like we need to if we want to compete against the best teams on our schedule.
“We’ll get better from that. That’s the thing, our kids are coachable. They want to be good. They had good attitudes (Friday). We just have to keep working.”
Things worked out well for the Arabians against the Cougars. A big thanks goes to plenty of early Greenfield-Central mistakes.
Greenfield-Central fumbled five times in the first half and seven times overall. Five were recovered by Pendleton Heights. Three of the fumbles came in the first quarter, twice on ensuing kickoffs after Pendleton Heights touchdowns. Another came one play after a PH kickoff.
After scoring on a 66-yard drive to open the game’s scoring, Pendleton Heights started its next three possessions at the Greenfield-Central 21, 12 and 18 yard lines.
“I’d like to take credit for a lot of those, but some of them were given — but we took advantage of it,” Richman said. “Then, we capitalized on most of them. That was really important. Any time you get a turnover, to get something out of it is really big. It’s definitely an emotional thing.”
In the first quarter, PH senior quarterback Kirby Hess threw two touchdown passes. The opening Arabians drive ended on a 35-yard strike to tight end David Stahly. Hess also connected to Tristan Ross on a 12-yard score.
Caden McClain, on a 3-yard run, and Joe Rios, with a 17-yard burst, provided the other Pendleton Heights scores.
All four touchdowns came in the final 4:10 of the first quarter. With the help of the fumbles, the last three were in a 65-second span from 2:44 left in the period to 1:39.
The Cougars took nearly six minutes off the clock with the game’s opening drive, but they turned it over on downs at the Arabians 34. The next time the G-C offense was on the field, the score was 20-0 in favor of the Arabians.
Luke Bays had a 2-yard touchdown run in the second quarter to increase Pendleton Heights’ lead to 33-0 by halftime.
Pendleton Heights scored two more times in the second half. Rios barreled over would-be tacklers for a crowd-rousing 45-yard score, and Kamden Earley added six more to the PH total with a 2-yard run to put the hosts up 47-0.
Nick Taylor was 5-of-7 on PATs.
Rios was the top Pendleton Heights’ ground-gainer with five carries for 79 yards. Earley had nine tries for 64 yards. Hess completed 3-of-8 passes for 54 yards, with two touchdowns and one interception.
Defensively, Will Kaster had an interception.
“It was a good team win,” Richman added. “A lot of different guys made plays tonight.”
