ELKHART — At least pinpointing what Tippecanoe Valley can fix to become a better football team isn’t difficult.
It’s turnovers, and the Vikings — their offense doing little to complement a stout defensive effort — coughed up four of them during a 14-0 loss to Jimtown on Friday night at windy Sharpe Stadium.
“Turnovers this season have been an Achilles’ heel,” Valley coach Steve Moriarty said after his club was shut out for the first time since a 2021 sectional semifinal loss to Mishawaka Marian and the first time in regular-season play since its 2020 opener.
“We’ve just gotta find a way to minimize those turnovers,” Moriarty said. “Feels like every time we get a drive going, we shoot ourselves in the foot a little bit. Those are things that can’t happen going forward if we want to have success in the tournament.”
The Vikings dropped to 4-2 overall, 1-2 in the Indiana Northern State Conference, while the Jimmies improved to 4-2 overall, 3-0 in the INSC. They’ll host Knox (4-2, 3-0) next Friday in a showdown of the last two league unbeatens.
Compounding Valley’s misfortune against the Jims was losing leading running back Wes Parker to what Moriarty described as a head injury. Parker went into the night averaging 92.6 yards rushing per game and a staggering 14.9 per carry, but finished at 5 yards on two tries.
Nevertheless, the Vikings hung tough all the way, the game’s scoreless deadlock not broken until Ty Zartman scored from a yard out at the 1:20 mark of the third quarter, following an unusual pass interference call.
Jimtown then added an insurance touchdown with merely 39 seconds remaining in the contest, another Zartman 1-yarder.
“(The officials called) hand-shielding,” Moriarty said of the interference penalty that took the ball from the visitors’ 24 to the 12. “I didn’t even know that was a thing. Both guys jumped, and they said our guy had his hand in his face.”
Four plays later, Zartman punched in his first TD.
Jimtown began that possession at the Valley 38 thanks to the Vikings twice punting into the wind for just 7 and 18 yards, sandwiched around a booming 64-yard Jimmie punt that yielded a net of 44 and helped flip the field.
The punts could perhaps go under the heading of bad luck, but concerning the four giveaways, they included a 10-yard sack-fumble to end Valley’s first possession of the night after the Vikings had moved to the Jimtown 38 and a second-quarter fumble on an exchange that put an abrupt halt to an otherwise steady procession that featured 15 plays and a 53-yard advancement to the Jimmie 24.
Then in the second half, after Valley marched 43 yards on 10 plays to the Jimtown 37 in its effort to erase its 7-0 deficit, the Vikings suffered another lost fumble on an exchange at 7:27 to go in the game, this one entailing an 11-yard loss to set the Jimmies up for their final-minute clincher.
The last was certainly far less consequential, an interception of a long heave on the night’s final play, but there were also three fumbles by the guests that they did not lose.
“I thought we moved the ball pretty well at times and I thought our defense played well all night, until there at the very end when we were down in the dumps a little bit,” Moriarty said of what he viewed as the evening’s positives.
Individually, a huge positive came via the play of sophomore linebacker/defensive back Hunter Paxton, who saw his first extended action since Week 1 in his battle back from injury. Paxton registered a sack and another tackle for loss among a handful of stops.
“He did a very good job on defense,” Moriarty said, “and had a nice catch, too.”
Brandon Stiles intercepted a pass in the second quarter for Valley, accounting for the Jims’ lone turnover.
Grady Moriarty led the Viking offense with 70 yards on 19 carries. Stiles added 23 on seven and Brock Derf 17 on three.
Valley netted 116 yards overall and completed just one pass in six tries, Paxton’s 9-yard reception.
Jimtown finished at 173 total yards, including Zartman’s 86 on 20 carries. The Jimmies closed at 110 on the ground and 63 through the air.
Valley steps outside conference play next Friday when it visits Western (0-6) of Russiaville, which is in Howard County southwest of Kokomo.