'They didn't know what hit them.' New Prairie trucks Elkhart in regular-season finale

NEW CARLISLE — Noah Mungia says that it “lit a little fire under me” when his helmet was yanked off his head for a second-quarter personal foul call Friday night, although it appeared, and the Elkhart Lions might concede, that the New Prairie running back was plenty ablaze already.

With the quick-cutting senior accelerating his way to 279 yards and a touchdown on 23 carries, and with weaving junior quarterback Marshall Kmiecik adding 160 yards and two TDs on 17 keepers, the Cougars hammered the Lions 35-7 at Amzie Miller Field, a margin that at least seemed stunning based on the comparable bodies of work each team had compiled going in.

“They didn’t know what hit them,” Mungia said of New Prairie’s Senior Night dominance. “I think our ability with Marshall to run it and then for me to run it, they didn’t know what to do, and we used that to our advantage. Marshall is a dog. We can rely on Marshall.”

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Each side entered the evening 7-1 overall, 3-1 in the Northern Indiana Conference East-West Division. Each had been handed its lone loss by Penn, which went on to win the East-West, though it was the Lions’ margin against the Kingsmen that was actually favorable at 21-20, while the Cougars’ fell 21-0 just last week.

“I imagined we could play as well as we did,” New Prairie coach Casey McKim said. “The way it turned out on the scoreboard, the 35-7, maybe I didn’t see that, but really, we hadn’t played at a high level for a full four quarters this year, and tonight we did that.”

The Class 4A No. 5-ranked Cougars churned for 491 yards of total offense, 467 of it coming on the ground. They cranked out touchdown drives that included 89, 80, 76 and 88 yards to accompany a 29-yarder that was set up by Brice VanBruaene’s 40-yard punt return.

Heading in, the fewest points Class 6A No. 10 Elkhart had scored in a game this season was the 20 against Penn, and the Lions were averaging 33.8 overall, while the most Elkhart had allowed was 21 against Penn, to go with no more than seven allowed in any other outing and a skimpy 5.5 average overall.

New Prairie blew those figures away.

The Cougars jumped to a 21-7 lead by halftime, then made it 28-7 just four plays into the third quarter when Mungia busted loose for a 55-yard TD.

It was shortly before the intermission that Mungia had finished out a run by having his helmet stripped off by a frustrated defender. That helped extend a drive that ended with power back Jacob Mrozinski’s second short TD of the night just 36 seconds before the break.

“That lit a little fire under me, '' Mungia said of the personal-foul play, which was followed by a teammate retrieving his helmet and Mungia waving it high. “The crowd behind us when the helmet got ripped off, they were yelling and chanting. It was crazy. I liked it.”

Mungia, who pushed his season total to 1,255, had 75 yards on eight carries before the penalty. He added 204 on 15 the rest of the way.

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Elkhart finished with 197 total yards for the game — 110 of those coming from Aalias Leonard on 17 carries — after entering with an average of 349.

The Lions were just 4-of-11 on third-down conversions, while Hayden Scott recorded an interception for New Prairie and Nathan Andrysiak a sack.

“Our defense was outstanding,” McKim said. “The biggest thing was just knowing the situations. Our guys were playing physical on run downs, and on third downs they were doing a good job of formationally identifying things. They anticipated what was coming and just played fast and physical.”

“They did a good job taking away some of our plays,” Elkhart coach Romison Saint-Louis concurred. “We moved the ball some, but we also had penalties that hurt us, and we’ve been relying on our defense all year, and when (New Prairie) scored as easily as they did all night, it also took away some things offensively.”

Regardless of whether the Lions expected to lose decisively, “I think they expected it,” Saint-Louis said of the Cougars. “They’re a good program, well-coached and their guys came out very passionate, very aggressive, very ready to play ball. I think their coach did a good job of getting them ready, and I did not do a good job. … That’s on me.”

Elkhart, as part of Class 6A, gets two weeks between games before visiting Warsaw (7-2) in a sectional semifinal on Oct. 28. New Prairie will be home for a 4A first-round game next Friday against Kankakee Valley (4-5).

New Prairie 35, Elkhart 7

NP: Marshall Kmiecik 30 run (Owen Chalik kick).

NP: Jacob Mrozinski 1 run (Chalik kick).

E: Rodney Gates 12 pass from Quinn Rost (Jeremiah Aguilera kick).

NP: Mrozinski 5 run (Chalik kick).

NP: Noah Muniga 55 run (Chalik kick).

NP: Kmiecik 5 run (Chalik kick)

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Indiana high school football: New Prairie beats Elkhart in finale