Vikings Make Most Of Opportunity Against Squires
September 24, 2016 at 6:53 a.m.
Vikings Make Most Of Opportunity Against Squires
By Mark [email protected]
While both teams made plenty of gaffes, Tippecanoe Valley was able to take the most advantage of Manchester’s mistakes to get a 31-28 Three Rivers Conference win on the Squires’ homecoming night.
Valley took advantage of three interceptions thrown by Squire junior quarterback Hayes Sturtsman. The first was returned for a touchdown by Alec Craig, and the third set up the last Viking touchdown.
On the other hand, Manchester stayed close, and eventually took its first lead of the season in the third quarter, primarily on the strength of good field position. Just when things appeared to swing Valley’s way late in the second quarter, Squire senior Kane Gable returned a punt 63 yards for a touchdown with 16 seconds left before halftime to close the Viking lead to 13-12.
“The special teams score hurt us, the field position hurts us, penalties hurt us, but we were able to overcome those things because our kids are believing right now,” Valley co-head coach Jeff Shriver said.
“I told the kids there were about a dozen times or so where we could have hung our heads because of a penalty, or because of non-called penalty, and anything that’s beyond our control we can’t worry about. Instead we played the next six seconds in front of us, and ultimately it came out in our favor.”
Valley scored first in the third quarter, capping a drive aided by a pair of personal fouls against Manchester for late hits, both after the same play. Genoah Maliniemi finished off the drive with a 2-yard touchdown run.
Wes Melancon caught Sturtsman’s last interception and returned it 23 yards to the Squire 12-yard line. Three plays later Craig scored from six yards out to give Valley a seemingly insurmountable 31-20 lead.
But Sturtsman, Devon Rooney and the Squires weren’t quite done yet. Sturtsman connected with Rooney for passes of 45 and 37 yards, the latter good for a touchdown that closed the gap to three points with 1:49 left.
An onside kick, after two penalties, failed and Valley ran out the clock to claim its first win of the season and snap a nine-game losing streak.
“We have a great group of kids that play hard, and we came up with a couple of big plays at the end that gave us an opportunity to at least have a chance,”?Manchester head coach Greg Miller said. “I’m extremely proud of them for sticking with it, and making big plays when it counted.”
The officials had a busy night, with 193 yards of accepted penalties between the two teams.
Shriver said while the win was a good thing, it wasn’t necessarily a thing of beauty.
“If there is (an ugly win), maybe it was tonight. We had a lot of plays that went our way, and that’s because we made those plays go our way,” he said. “We’ve talked about getting better fundamentally, and tonight, especially defensively, I think we saw some of that.”
Miller shouldered the responsibility for the loss.
“We’ve got to do a better job of preparing our kids to play a game on Friday night, and we didn’t do that this week,” he said. “It’s difficult to come back from the mistakes that we made. We as coaches are going to have to look at doing a better job of getting the kids ready for Fridays.
“We just can’t make those mistakes, especially in critical situations. Anytime you let the officials take the game in their hands, that happens. We’ve got to be a more disciplined team, and I told them we have to play within the rules. That means you can’t hold, you can’t block in the back and you have to hit between the lines. That’s the disappointing fact that came out of tonight’s game.”
Valley improved to 1-5 overall and 1-3 in the conference standings. The Vikings will host winless Rochester on Friday. Manchester fell to 0-6 (0-3 in the TRC) and hosts Whitko on Friday.
TIPPECANOE VALLEY 31,
MANCHESTER 28
TV 6 7 6 12 – 31
M 6 6 8 8 – 28
TV M
1st downs 11 14
Rushing yds 194 47
Passing yds 25 172
Comp-Att-Int 4-7-1 10-23-3
Total yds 219 219
Fumbles/lost 1/0 3/1
Penalties/yds 11/93 12/100
Punts/avg. 7/30.6 3/40.3
First Quarter
TV – Alec Craig 20 interception return (kick failed) 9:36, 6-0
M – Hayes Sturtsman 11 run (kick failed) 3:18, 6-6
Second Quarter
TV – Bryce Webster 11 pass from Craig (Domingo Santiago kick) 2:21, 13-6
M – Kane Gable 63 punt return (pass failed) 0:16, 13-12
Third Quarter
TV – Genoah Maliniemi 2 run (kick blocked) 7:10, 19-12
M – Remington Trick 15 pass from Sturtsman (Josh Shepherd run) 3:16, 20-19
Fourth Quarter
TV – DJ Heckman 13 run (pass failed) 6:05, 25-20
TV – Craig 6 run (pass failed) 4:02, 31-20
M – Devon Rooney 35 pass from Sturtsman (Shepherd pass from Sturtsman) 1:49, 31-28
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
Rushing – Valley, Craig 14-23, Heckman 17-88, Maliniemi 5-40, Jaydin conley 4-18, Jonathon Fields 3-15, Cameron Parker 3-10; Manchester – Sturtsman 9-(minus 3), Delton Moore 6-12, Shepherd 4-13.
Passing – Valley, Craig 4-7-25 yds, 1 TD, 1 Int.; Sturtsman 10-23-172 yds., 2 TDs, 3 Int.
Receiving – Valley, Webster 2-21, Heckman 1-3, Parker 1-1; Manchester, Trick 2-18, Yard 2-43, Rooney 3-89, Moore 1-6, Nick Wagner 1-8, Shepherd 1-8.
While both teams made plenty of gaffes, Tippecanoe Valley was able to take the most advantage of Manchester’s mistakes to get a 31-28 Three Rivers Conference win on the Squires’ homecoming night.
Valley took advantage of three interceptions thrown by Squire junior quarterback Hayes Sturtsman. The first was returned for a touchdown by Alec Craig, and the third set up the last Viking touchdown.
On the other hand, Manchester stayed close, and eventually took its first lead of the season in the third quarter, primarily on the strength of good field position. Just when things appeared to swing Valley’s way late in the second quarter, Squire senior Kane Gable returned a punt 63 yards for a touchdown with 16 seconds left before halftime to close the Viking lead to 13-12.
“The special teams score hurt us, the field position hurts us, penalties hurt us, but we were able to overcome those things because our kids are believing right now,” Valley co-head coach Jeff Shriver said.
“I told the kids there were about a dozen times or so where we could have hung our heads because of a penalty, or because of non-called penalty, and anything that’s beyond our control we can’t worry about. Instead we played the next six seconds in front of us, and ultimately it came out in our favor.”
Valley scored first in the third quarter, capping a drive aided by a pair of personal fouls against Manchester for late hits, both after the same play. Genoah Maliniemi finished off the drive with a 2-yard touchdown run.
Wes Melancon caught Sturtsman’s last interception and returned it 23 yards to the Squire 12-yard line. Three plays later Craig scored from six yards out to give Valley a seemingly insurmountable 31-20 lead.
But Sturtsman, Devon Rooney and the Squires weren’t quite done yet. Sturtsman connected with Rooney for passes of 45 and 37 yards, the latter good for a touchdown that closed the gap to three points with 1:49 left.
An onside kick, after two penalties, failed and Valley ran out the clock to claim its first win of the season and snap a nine-game losing streak.
“We have a great group of kids that play hard, and we came up with a couple of big plays at the end that gave us an opportunity to at least have a chance,”?Manchester head coach Greg Miller said. “I’m extremely proud of them for sticking with it, and making big plays when it counted.”
The officials had a busy night, with 193 yards of accepted penalties between the two teams.
Shriver said while the win was a good thing, it wasn’t necessarily a thing of beauty.
“If there is (an ugly win), maybe it was tonight. We had a lot of plays that went our way, and that’s because we made those plays go our way,” he said. “We’ve talked about getting better fundamentally, and tonight, especially defensively, I think we saw some of that.”
Miller shouldered the responsibility for the loss.
“We’ve got to do a better job of preparing our kids to play a game on Friday night, and we didn’t do that this week,” he said. “It’s difficult to come back from the mistakes that we made. We as coaches are going to have to look at doing a better job of getting the kids ready for Fridays.
“We just can’t make those mistakes, especially in critical situations. Anytime you let the officials take the game in their hands, that happens. We’ve got to be a more disciplined team, and I told them we have to play within the rules. That means you can’t hold, you can’t block in the back and you have to hit between the lines. That’s the disappointing fact that came out of tonight’s game.”
Valley improved to 1-5 overall and 1-3 in the conference standings. The Vikings will host winless Rochester on Friday. Manchester fell to 0-6 (0-3 in the TRC) and hosts Whitko on Friday.
TIPPECANOE VALLEY 31,
MANCHESTER 28
TV 6 7 6 12 – 31
M 6 6 8 8 – 28
TV M
1st downs 11 14
Rushing yds 194 47
Passing yds 25 172
Comp-Att-Int 4-7-1 10-23-3
Total yds 219 219
Fumbles/lost 1/0 3/1
Penalties/yds 11/93 12/100
Punts/avg. 7/30.6 3/40.3
First Quarter
TV – Alec Craig 20 interception return (kick failed) 9:36, 6-0
M – Hayes Sturtsman 11 run (kick failed) 3:18, 6-6
Second Quarter
TV – Bryce Webster 11 pass from Craig (Domingo Santiago kick) 2:21, 13-6
M – Kane Gable 63 punt return (pass failed) 0:16, 13-12
Third Quarter
TV – Genoah Maliniemi 2 run (kick blocked) 7:10, 19-12
M – Remington Trick 15 pass from Sturtsman (Josh Shepherd run) 3:16, 20-19
Fourth Quarter
TV – DJ Heckman 13 run (pass failed) 6:05, 25-20
TV – Craig 6 run (pass failed) 4:02, 31-20
M – Devon Rooney 35 pass from Sturtsman (Shepherd pass from Sturtsman) 1:49, 31-28
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
Rushing – Valley, Craig 14-23, Heckman 17-88, Maliniemi 5-40, Jaydin conley 4-18, Jonathon Fields 3-15, Cameron Parker 3-10; Manchester – Sturtsman 9-(minus 3), Delton Moore 6-12, Shepherd 4-13.
Passing – Valley, Craig 4-7-25 yds, 1 TD, 1 Int.; Sturtsman 10-23-172 yds., 2 TDs, 3 Int.
Receiving – Valley, Webster 2-21, Heckman 1-3, Parker 1-1; Manchester, Trick 2-18, Yard 2-43, Rooney 3-89, Moore 1-6, Nick Wagner 1-8, Shepherd 1-8.
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