(New Carlisle, IN) - New Prairie hosted NIC rival Penn at Amzie Miller Field Friday night with the conference championship on the line. The Cougars’ defense showed up, but the offense did not. New Prairie laid a goose egg, falling 22-0.

 

Highlights were few and far between. New Prairie mustered only two first downs and was held to nine yards of total offense. Senior quarterback Marshall Kmiecik completed two passes for 15 yards, and registered -41 yards rushing. Aside from sophomore Reed Robinson’s 34 yards on the ground, the only forward progress for the Cougars came from Kmiecik’s seven punts.

 

A heavy afternoon rain left the playing field a little messy just prior to game time, but Coach Casey McKim said it wasn’t the weather or any trickery by Penn that stymied the Cougars, just poor execution. “Game-plan-wise they really didn’t do anything that surprised us. It was all stuff that we were prepping for," McKim said after the game. “It was just our ability to execute up front. Their speed and size gave us some major problems, and we just weren’t able to execute at the level that we needed to.”

 

New Prairie’s stubborn defense gave the Cougars a fighting chance, giving up only 15 first-quarter points. (New Prairie’s offense handed Penn another score in the fourth quarter by fumbling in their own end zone.)

 

Three Cougar defenders had more tackles than the offense had yards: 14 for Harrison Groves, 12 for Hayden Scott, and 10 for Trenton Klute. Klute also recovered a fumble knocked loose by Groves. Despite being on the field for most of the game and giving up nearly 300 total yards, New Prairie’s defense held strong and turned back the Kingsmen on four different fourth down attempts.

 

New Prairie (6-2 overall, 3-1 in The NIC) looks to bounce back in their final regular season game next Friday at Elkhart (3-5).