Saturday at Lucas Oil Stadium

What a great day at Lucas Oil Stadium today of HHC football. We saw a lot of very good football, with some talented players and good teams showing their stuff. We also saw the Delta Eagles clinch at least a piece of their 7th HHC championship of the decade in the final game of the night. Now, the question that needs to be answered is, will the Eagles win it outright, or will it be a 2-way or 3-way tie?

That's the picture after today's games. Delta is 6-0 in the conference. New Palestine and Shelbyville are both 5-1 and in contention. Should Shelbyville beat Delta and NP beat Mt. Vernon next week, there would be a 3-way tie atop the conference.

Some really big games for us today. In the opener, New Palestine was very efficient in a 56-0 win over Greenfield-Central. The Dragons rolled up 502 yards of offense, scored on eight of their nine possessions and spread the ball around. Cary Albrecht was 12-of-14 for 243 yards through the air, with 140 of those going to Pat Feeney, who broke the 1,000-yard mark in yards from scrimmage today, as he added 69 rushing yards to that total. He also had a 54-yard punt return to the 1 that set up another score. Nathan Penley also had a big day catching the ball, and NP's running attack had 10 different people carry for 250+ yards. Seven different players scored TDs for the Dragons in the game.

In the nightcap, Delta held off Mt. Vernon 24-16 in a whale of a football game. The Eagles took the opening kickoff and took a 7-0 lead shortly thereafter on a 14-yard TD pass to Logan Young. But after that, the Marauders took away much of Delta's running game and forced Ozzie Mann to throw. That, he did -- throwing for 140+ yards, connecting six times with Young for 57 yards and four times with Zach Overfield for 69 yards. MV came back, with Corey White's 32-yard TD run and a 30-yard interception return by Steve Olson setting up a field goal and giving the Marauders a 9-7 lead late in the first half. A 25-yard pass from Mann to Overfield set up a field goal by the Eagles at the first-half gun, and Delta then went into grind-it-out mode in the second half. The Eagles put together two mammoth drives -- a 6+ minute drive that finished with Overfield's 5-yard TD run made it 17-9, and another 10-play drive ended with a fourth-down TD pass to Young to make it 24-16. In-between, MV's Austin Parker hit Jake Davis with a 50-yard pass, setting up Trey Ross' 13-yard TD run two plays later. However, when the Marauders got the ball back after the second Delta score, a 2nd-and-1 became 4th-and-punt after a penalty and a sack, and Delta essentially ran out last five minutes.

In the middle games, Shelbyville pulled away from Yorktown in the second half to win 30-13 -- with the Kevin Prosch-led offense getting back in gear after being held to 7 points last week. Rushville then rallied from a 13-point fourth-quarter deficit to beat Pendleton Heights 21-20.

Thus, the HHC standings look like this headed into the final week:
Delta 6-0/8-0
Shelbyville 5-1/7-1
New Palestine 5-1/6-2
Mt. Vernon 4-2/5-3
Yorktown 2-4/4-4
Rushville 2-4/3-5
Pendleton Hts. 1-6/2-6
Greenfield-C. 0-7/1-7

Friday's schedule
New Palestine at Mt. Vernon (CCSN broadcast time 7 p.m.)
Shelbyville at Delta
Yorktown at Rushville
Pendleton Heights at Anderson Highland
Chatard at Greenfield-Central

We're looking forward to bringing you the Boundary Rail game on Friday night between the Dragons and Marauders. It's one of the great rivalries in Indiana high school football, and one that should be a great matchup between two very evenly-matched teams that played some really strong football today on the turf.

Also, with the sectional draw Tuesday night, read here for some reaction and more!