AKRON - Friday night's game against the Manchester Squires was one of several firsts for Valley. The Vikings held their first lead of the season, made their first point after touchdown, and most importantly, got their first win in the opening TRC contest for both teams.

The Squires were also looking for their first win of the season and looked like the team in control in their first possesion from scrimmage.

Manchester took over on it's own 14 yard line and began to move quickly. Quarterback Brian Runkel found big target Nick Poe for 10 yards and a first down. Nate Stoops then ran three times for 49 yards including a 30-yard romp that set up Runkel's 18-yard touchdown pass to Jared Barrett on a sharp fade route in the corner of the endzone.

Valley head coach Scott Bibler knew that allowing Manchester to get up early could hang heavy over a group of kids who were pounded by North Judson and lost a 6-0 heartbreaker to Mississinewa.

"You bet I was worried. In fact, I told the kids after the game tonight that I was concerned with how they'd respond. I wanted to see what type of character they had. They came off of two tough losses. After going down 7-0, I wanted to see what kind of character our kids would show," said Bibler.

It would take Valley's second possesion of the second quarter to show some character and wake up an offense that hadn't scored in six quarters.

The Vikings capitalized on good field positon starting on Manchester's 29 yard line. Valley ran the ball four straight times with Matt Hellums capping things off on a 14 yard run to the outside. Bryan Wong's run for the two point conversion gave the Vikings an 8-7 lead with 8:09 remaining in the first half, Valley's first lead of the season.

The Valley defense stepped up on Manchester's ensuing possesion when Josh Leon recovered a Squire fumble to give the Vikings great field position for a second straight time.

Bryan Wong took over from that point on. Wong carried the ball six straight times before putting some distance between Valley and Manchester, with a 13 yard run. for the Viking's second touchdown of the quarter. An Aaron Reed run made the score 16-7 in Valley's favor.

The 16 points scored by Valley in the second quarter matched the Vikings' point total in the first two games.

Attribute the improved play to a young offensive line blocking for Wong. Wong finished the evening with 23 carries for 121 yards. Wong spent most of the second half moving the chains and running time off the game clock.

The Vikings scored their third and final touchdown of the evening on a one-yard rumble by Wong with 7:02 left in the game. Jerrod Parker added the PAT, the Vikings first of the year.

On the other end of the field, Manchester's new spread offense looked the sharpest it has all season. Runkel finsihed the evening 11-21 for 71 yards and a touchdown. While the junior signal caller did have two interceptions, both picks came when he was hit while he threw.

Squire head coach Brandon Baker is left in search of his first win as Manchester's head coach. While the first quarter showed what his team is capable of, the other three showed where they need to improve.

"The thing I told the guys at the end of the game was that you see what you can do when we do what we're supposed to do. You look at those first couple of series. We went out and scored and stopped them on defense because we were fired up. Then we lost that intesnsity. Until these guys learn that we're going to continue to struggle," said Baker.

For Bibler the win takes a big monkey off the shoulders of his program and sets them up for a tough conference season.

"It's just a big win for the kids and even the coaches. We've had a tough start this year. We were really banged up, we have a lot of kids who are injured. Hopefully this win will help us in the next in the next week with our practices and to get ready for another tough TRC game."

The Vikings, 1-2, 1-0 TRC, travel to Southwood Friday at 7 p.m. For Manchester, 0-3, 0-1 TRC, the road to it's first win leads back home against Whitko. The Wildcats picked up their first win against Southwood 41-12 Friday. [[In-content Ad]]