Indiana 6th Graders Win Central Region, Headed to Naples

<p dir="ltr">Team Indiana’s sixth-grade team booked its ticket to Naples, Florida on Sunday on the back of yet another stellar defensive performance.</p> <p dir="ltr">Following Saturday’s shutout victory over Kentucky, Indiana followed that up by defeating MoKan 52-0 on Sunday in the second round of the FBU National Championship tournament at St. Pius X high school in Kansas City, Missouri.</p> <p dir="ltr">“We're just getting better and better,” Indiana head coach <strong>Dwayne Brown</strong> said. “We played clean, we didn't have very many penalties, we didn't turn the ball over, they did everything we asked them to do as a team and I couldn't be more proud as a coach.”</p> <p dir="ltr">The dominating force of lineman <strong>Theothus Troutman</strong> led the way for Indiana on both defense and special teams.<img class="alignright wp-image-245389 size-medium" src="https://prephoops-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/redzone/uploads/2021/12/TheoTroutman-300x300.jpeg" alt="" width="300" height="300" /></p> <p dir="ltr">Defensively, Troutman caused trouble all game for MoKan quarterback <strong>Kasimir Manczuk III</strong>, sacking the young quarterback on multiple occasions and causing him to hurry countless more.</p> <p dir="ltr">Between Troutman’s pass rush and the rest of the Indiana defense shutting down MoKan’s run game, Indiana trapped the hosts deep in their own half for much of the game. Each short punt or turnover on downs put Indiana in good field position to quickly run up the score and cause a running clock at 24-0 early in the second quarter.</p> <p dir="ltr">And each time Indiana did find the endzone, Troutman was on hand to send a 55-yard kickoff right back down the field.</p> <p dir="ltr">Cycle and repeat.</p> <p dir="ltr">“At this level, there's going to be a lot of special teams and it's going to be field position,” Brown said. “When you can kick the ball to the back of the endzone or start behind the 20, and with our defense right now, it's a huge advantage.”</p> <p dir="ltr">But all of the plaudits can’t go just toward the Indiana defense. Being handed good field position or not, the Indiana offense still had to go out there and get the ball into the endzone.</p> <p dir="ltr">Not including the five successful two-point attempts, Indiana found the endzone on seven different occasions on the back of quarterbacks <strong>Darian Prather</strong> and <strong>Chase Grove</strong>.</p> <p dir="ltr"><img class="alignleft wp-image-245304 size-thumbnail" src="https://prephoops-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/redzone/uploads/2021/12/DylanPrather-150x150.jpeg" alt="" width="150" height="150" />Running back <strong>Chase McGraw</strong> punched in the first touchdown of the game as well as the sixth, but it was the play of Prather both in the air and on the ground that set the tone for Indiana.</p> <p dir="ltr">Prather threw for two touchdowns and also set up a couple of others, but ironically, it’ll be a special team play that he’ll remember Sunday for. Returning the kickoff for the second half, Prather hauled in the ball at his own 25-yard line and charged 75 yards down the field all the way to the endzone to open up a 38-0 lead.</p> <p dir="ltr">Indiana running back <strong>Jawon Waddle Jr.</strong> also ran in two touchdowns including a 42-yard score a minute before halftime.</p> <p dir="ltr">“We weren't trying to run the score up or anything, it was some stuff that we didn't get to do against Kentucky that we wanted to do,” Brown said. “We wanted to kind of spread it out a little bit and get those looks and it looks clean, we've still got some stuff to fix but I can appreciate how it looks.”</p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Contributed special to PRZ Next by Shaun Goodwin</em></p>