December 3, 2024 // Diocese

Luers Falls Short of First 3A State Championship

Scott Warden

Editor-In-Chief

INDIANAPOLIS – As his players lined up in numerical order waiting to receive their runner-up medals at midfield after losing the Class 3A state championship game to an overpowering Heritage Hills team on Saturday, November 30, Bishop Luers head football coach Kyle Lindsay walked down the line and greeted his players one by one, offering hugs and handshakes that consoled some more than others.

Click here for more photos from the game.

The bad news was frozen on the scoreboard above him inside Lucas Oil Stadium: Heritage Hills 38, Bishop Luers 15. The score only told the end of the story, though. The Patriots’ backfield duo of junior quarterback Jett Goldsberry and senior running back Hunter Meredith wrote the rest, as they combined to pound the Knights for 318 yards rushing and a record-tying five touchdowns to spoil Bishop Luers’ 18th state finals appearance.

The Knights won the Class 2A title last season – the program’s 12th state championship, and first since 2012 – but the IHSAA elevated Luers to 3A because of its sustained success on the field.

Moving up a class was a challenge the Knights were clearly up for – and one Lindsay said he welcomed heading into the season. After finishing the regular season at 5-4 and winning each of their first two sectional games by more than 30 points, Luers knocked off three previously undefeated teams to win the sectional, regional, and semistate titles on their way to clinching the program’s first Class 3A championship game appearance.

At Lucas Oil Stadium, though, Heritage Hills went and spoiled their fun.

The Patriots, who hail from Lincoln City in Spencer County – so far south in Indiana that they could practically kick field goals into the Ohio River – were Class 3A runners-up last season. It didn’t take long for them to set the tone against the Knights. On a third and 1 on their second drive of the game, Goldsberry took a quarterback keeper 73 yards for the game’s first score. Meredith added a 33-yard touchdown run to give the Patriots a 14-0 lead with two minutes left in the first quarter.

 

In the second quarter, Bishop Luers junior wide receiver Dee Hogue closed the gap with a 10-yard touchdown catch from junior quarterback Jayce White, but Goldsberry scored his second touchdown of the game just three plays later, and Heritage Hills tacked on a field goal as the first half ended with the Patriots up 24-7.

While the Knights hoped to cut into the lead in the second half, it only widened, as Goldsberry and Meredith each ran for touchdowns to give Heritage Hills a 38-7 lead midway through the fourth quarter. Bishop Luers junior quarterback Devin Patterson, who relieved White midway through the third quarter, scampered in from 11 yards out to cap the scoring.

“The resilience amongst the team, keeping their head up in this adversity – there were several moments this year, particularly in the regular season, where it didn’t look like [playing for a state title] would be a possibility,” Lindsay said after the game, recalling three straight losses against Summit Athletic Conference foes to end the regular season. “Between some bad losses, some games that we felt like we gave away … I’m just awfully proud that we made it to this point. Obviously, we were not content with getting here. The ultimate goal was to win a Class 3A championship, but the process speaks a lot of the character of these kids.”

As they stood in line awaiting their runner-up medals, Lindsay had a special message for the members of the junior class: He’d been in their shoes. He knew the pain they were feeling, and he urged them to remember it and to use it as fuel for next season. The situations are stunningly similar despite being separated by nearly a quarter of a century. Like the current junior class at Bishop Luers, Lindsay and his teammates won a state title as sophomores. The following year, facing lofty expectations, they got blitzed by a team from southern Indiana (a 56-10 drubbing by Evansville Mater Dei). In Lindsay’s case, the class of 2002 rebounded as seniors to claim a state championship, avenging their loss by walloping Mater Dei 59-27.

“As I was walking through the line, I said, ‘Remember this, look at that scoreboard, remember that score, because that should be your motivator for this offseason,’” said Lindsay, who finished his 12th season as the Knights’ head coach. “I also said, ‘I’ve been in your position as a junior, that scoreboard said 56-10 when, back in 2000, we lost to Evansville Mater Dei. Our small senior class returning from that season, we used that every day as a motivating factor to get better.’ So that’s obviously going to be the goal this offseason.”

Following the state championship loss, Hogue, a junior wide receiver, and Zack Wall, a 6-foot-5, 306-pound offensive lineman, told Today’s Catholic that the goal for next year was clear. Actually, it was more of a prediction than a goal.

“We’re coming back here in 3A and winning it all,” Hogue said.

“We’ll finish it next year,” Wall said. “There’s no doubt.”

Scott Warden is editor-in-chief of Today’s Catholic.