INDIANAPOLIS
After three months, Center Grove fans finally got a vintage Carson Steele moment on Friday night.
With the Trojans facing fourth and inches at the Warren Central 18-yard line, Steele took the ball and followed the blockers in the team’s "jumbo" package. Once he broke through the line, the junior running back carried a pair of Warrior defenders all the way to the end zone.
Steele, making his season debut after being sidelined by injuries all fall, ran for 93 yards and a pair of second-half touchdowns to help Center Grove finish off a 28-14 road win in Class 6A regional action.
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The Trojans (7-5) will host another MIC rival, Ben Davis, in a semistate game next Friday.
"It’s amazing to be back," Steele said. "I had to get a couple of warmup reps first. It’s been about eight, nine months, so it felt amazing to get in that end zone again, especially on the Warren Central field."
Steele’s second touchdown, a 1-yard run with 54 seconds remaining, iced the game after Center Grove came up with a decisive defensive stop. L.J. Weems made a big third-down sack, and the Warriors’ pass attempt on fourth fell incomplete.
The Trojans yielded just 50 yards in the second half.
Center Grove marched 80 yards upfield for a touchdown on its opening drive. Brandon Wheat broke a 42-yard run to move the ball to the Warriors’ 25, and after Steele kept the drive alive by converting a fourth down in the red zone, Tayven Jackson found Connor Delp for an 11-yard score on the lone pass of the possession.
Following an exchange of punts, Warren Central marched deep into Trojan territory before getting stopped on downs at the 4-yard line. Center Grove’s defense came up big again on the next Warrior drive, forcing a punt with back-to-back sacks from Austin Booker, but the home team managed to strike and claim the lead just before the half.
An apparent punt return for a touchdown was wiped out by a penalty, and the Warriors appeared destined to head into the locker room down 6-0 after a bad snap set up a third-and-28 situation at the Center Grove 45. But Cobe Moore heaved the ball up to DeMarcus Brown, who got behind the secondary and into the end zone with 24 seconds left on the second-quarter clock.
The Trojans were able to shift the momentum coming out of the locker room, stopping a Warren Central fake punt near midfield and regaining the lead with 6:57 left in the third quarter when Trent Veith came across the middle, snatched a Jackson pass and surged into the end zone. Jackson ran a bootleg in on the two-point conversion to make it 14-7, and Steele’s first TD of the year later in the quarter gave Center Grove a two-score lead.
"You’ve just got to forget about it and do what we knew what we could do," Moore said of the second-half turnaround. "Run the football, play good hard-nosed defense, keep the big play down and we’re okay."
Warren Central was given a new lease on life after a Trojan fumble set the offense up with a short field and Moore scored on a 14-yard run with 10:22 remaining, and the Warriors then blocked an Austin Watson field-goal attempt to get the ball back down seven with 4:21 to go. But Weems dropped Moore to the turf with just under three minutes left, and after the ensuing turnover on downs Steele helped close the door.
Center Grove finished with 240 yards rushing. Steele did much of the work late, but Daniel Weems was solid throughout, gaining a team-high 95 yards on 18 carries.
Left for dead by many after a 1-4 start, the Trojans managed to get the season turned around and get right back into the final four, just as they always seem to do. The victory gave Center Grove its eighth regional championship in nine years.
"This is one of the most improved football teams I’ve been around," Moore said. "We thought we could come in and win tonight, and we did. All the credit goes to our coaches and our kids for playing hard. Our defense did a great job, our offense was awesome when we had to be, and there’s a lot of things in between that weren’t much fun, but we did a lot of great things tonight.
"August doesn’t mean anything, guys. Punch us, kick us when we’re down, we’re going to go ahead and come back. I’m just so proud of my guys."
