GREENFIELD — Familiar faces met on Greenfield-Central’s Clayton Myers Field on Friday night.

Pendleton Heights traveled down State Road 9 for the 10th meeting between the Cougars and Arabians since 2019. Four of the last five seasons, the teams have met in both the regular season and postseason and have had some battles won by both teams.

Since 2021 though, while there have been many close games, the outcomes have been a one-sided Greenfield-Central affair.

With a 28-14 defeat on Friday night, the Arabians (2-2, 1-1) dropped their sixth straight game to the Cougars (4-0, 2-0).

“Pendleton is a great team and they’re well coached,” Greenfield-Central head coach Travis Nolting said. “The last few years these have been super competitive games that could go either way.”

The Pendleton Heights offense came into the game averaging 42 points per game, but it was the defense of the Cougars that made some of the biggest plays of the night.

A goal-line stand by the Greenfield-Central defense to open the second half was all the momentum it needed to close out a game in which they led by two scores at the break.

On the first play from scrimmage in the third quarter, Pendleton Heights running back Keaton Jones broke off a 60-yard run to set up first-and-goal from the five-yard line.

The Cougars defense denied Jones twice, forced an incomplete pass and then stood up quarterback Colton Frank at the one to maintain a 20-7 lead.

Up two scores, the Cougars ground-and-pound offense went to work.

Starting from the one, the G-C offense ran 11 plays and moved the ball all the way to midfield before penalties killed the drive and forced a punt, and after a quick defensive stop, the offense killed more of the clock before Cooper Sims intercepted G-C quarterback Dallas Freeman in the red zone to end another drive.

While the drives came up empty, and the Arabians defense did what it could, the Cougars controlled the clock and limited the Pendleton Heights offense to just 10 third-quarter plays. During the final 10 minutes of the quarter, the Arabians ran just five plays.

On the night, the Cougars ran the ball 57 times for 305 yards. Six players got carries, led by Braylen Benavente’s 92 yards. Freeman finished with 82 yards, and Hinton had 58 yards and two touchdowns.

Pendleton Heights ran just 47 plays to Greenfield-Central’s 77.

On the first Pendleton Heights drive of the fourth quarter, the Arabians went 83 yards for the touchdown to make things a one-score game. Frank connected with Nate DeRolf from 14 yards out to make the score 20-14 with 9:44 remaining.

Again, the G-C run game did what it does.

Hinton ran in a 5-yard touchdown run with just more than five minutes to play, and Benavente added the two-point conversion to put the Cougars ahead 28-14.

The scoring drive took off more than four minutes of game clock and all but sealed the win.

Greenfield-Central opened the night with a clinical, 12-play, 71-yard scoring drive for an early 7-0 lead. Hinton closed out the drive by punching in a 2-yard run.

The Arabians answered though on a long drive of their own that was kept alive by a pair of Greenfield-Central penalties. Frank found DeRolf on a 9-yard fade for the tying first-quarter score.

The Cougars added two second-quarter scores for the 20-7 halftime lead, and both came through the air.

Freeman threw a perfect ball over a few Arabians defenders to Landon Ford over the middle of the field for a 48-yard score to make things 14-7.

Austin Kincer intercepted Frank on the ensuing Pendleton Heights possession to kick-start the second score. Following the takeaway, the offense went 88 yards on 11 plays capped off by a Freeman 15-yard strike to Boston Willard.

The Arabians offense was held scoreless in both the second and third quarters.

Jones continued his great start to the season, running the ball 18 times for 139 yards, DeRolf pulled down a pair of touchdowns, and Jackson Grille led the team in receiving yards, catching six passes for 65 yards.

Defensively, Jacob Rowley had a team-high 21 tackles, Nico White had 20 tackles, Ayden Forsha had 14 and Jacob Eldridge had 11.

The Arabians continue conference play tomorrow when they host Class 4A No. 1 New Palestine.

The Dragons are 3-0-1 on the season and are coming off a dominant 56-8 win against Mt. Vernon.

Pendleton Heights has lost 12 straight match-ups to the Dragons with the last win coming in 2012.

New Palestine is led by quarterback Jacob Davis who has thrown for 668 yards and eight touchdowns and has added five scores on the ground.

Josh Ranes paces the ground game with 31 carries for 439 yards and nine touchdowns. He comes into the game averaging 14.2 yards per carry and 109.8 yards per game.

Austin McMahan had nine catches for 273 yards and four touchdowns.

Ball State University commit Michael Thacker leads the defense with 19 tackles, four tackles for loss and two sacks.