Indianapolis Cathedral won the state-best 800th football game in school history Friday night and secured its 28th sectional championship by avenging last year’s tourney loss at New Palestine with a 24-21 victory over the Dragons at Arsenal Tech’s Howard Longshore Stadium. The top-rated Fighting Irish now advance to the Class 5A regional round and will travel to Plainfield next Friday. Cathedral received the opening kickoff and marched 66 yards with Tell’i McCullough scoring on a 2-yard run on the drive’s tenth play to give the Irish a 6-0 lead. With 4:32 remaining in the second quarter, Luke Finn completed a 21-yard touchdown pass to Evan Johnson, then tossed a two-point conversion pass to Owen Peterson, which made the score 14-0. Rowan Fahey’s 28-yard field goal put Cathedral ahead 17-0 at halftime. Second ranked and defending 5A state champion New Palestine fought back in the third quarter. The Dragons took the second-half kickoff and needed just 90 seconds to cover 80 yards and cut the Irish lead to 17-7 when Rhys Ragan connected with Cael Butler for a 65-yard scoring pass. New Pal started its next drive at the 50-yard line. Logan Parks carried the ball on nine of the possession’s 14 plays, scoring on a 3-yard run to narrow the margin to 17-14. Cathedral answered in the closing seconds of the third period when Finn found Johnson over the middle and he outran Dragon defenders to the endzone for a 40-yard score that increased the Irish lead to 24-14. New Pal started its last drive of the game at its own 15-yard line with 2:33 left, but the Dragons needed just 2:15 to move the ball 85 yards in 14 plays. Ragan again connected with Butler – this time for a 16-yard TD. Caden Nelson covered Evan Walker’s onside kick with 17 seconds left to secure the Sectional 13 title for the Fighting Irish. The loss ended New Palestine’s 12-game post-season win streak that included a 20-15 victory over the Irish in last year’s sectional final and state championships in 2024 and 2025. The two schools have now evenly split six tournament meetings with the home team winning every game. Finn completed 12 of 16 passing attempts for 129 yards. Johnson caught five passes for 99 yards. Xavier Dangerfield added 114 rushing yards on 23 attempts for Cathedral. It was Dangerfield’s fourth consecutive game with more than 100 rushing yards. The senior also surpassed the 1,000-yard rushing mark for a second season – running for 1,087 yards as a sophomore in 2024. The Irish improve to 8-3, while the Dragons finish with a 7-4 mark – their fewest number of wins since 2012. Cathedral’s regional opponent is eighth-ranked Plainfield. The Quakers are 9-2 after a 43-8 win at Terre Haute South in the Sectional 14 title game. The Fighting Irish are 8-1 all-time in the post-season against Plainfield including a 54-7 win in their last meeting in 2021. Cathedral 24, New Palestine 21 New Palestine 0 0 14 7 — 21 Cathedral 6 11 7 0 — 24 Scoring Summary First Quarter CHS – McCullough 2-yard run (conversion failed), 7:40. Second Quarter CHS – Evan Johnson 21-yard pass from Finn (Peterson pass from Finn), 4:32. CHS — Fahey 28-yard field goal, 1:15. Third Quarter NPHS – Butler 65-yard pass from Ragan (Walker kick), 10:30. NPHS – Parks 3-yard run (Walker kick), 2:46. CHS – Evan Johnson 40-yard pass from Finn (Huebner kick), 0:22. Fourth Quarter NPHS – Butler 16-yard pass from Ragan (Walker kick), 0:18. New Palestine Cathedral First downs 18 17 Rushes-yards 37-126 33-169 Passing 18-30-1 16-25-1 Passing yards 200 168 Penalties 7-64 8-49 RUSHING NPHS: Parks 27-114, Ragan 7-7, Stephens 3-5. CHS: Dangerfield 23-114, McCullough 7-33, Knowles 3-22. PASSING NPHS: Ragan 18-30, 200 yards, 2 TD, 1 INT. CHS: Finn 12-16, 129 yards, 2 TD, 0 INT, Knowles 4-9, 39 yards, 0 TD, 1 INT. RECEIVING NPHS: Butler 7-111, Maddox 5-70, Gardner 3-12, Oglesby 3-7. CHS: Evan Johnson 5-99, Lewis 7-38, Ayers 3-24, Peterson 1-7.