NORTH MANCHESTER - The last time the Manchester student body was celebrating a 3-0 start to the football season, it was dancing to The Angels' No. 1 hit "My Boyfriend's Back."
Now, following a 13-0 win over the Tippecanoe Valley Vikings (1-2, 0-1 TRC) at Manchester College's Burt Field Friday, the 2009 Manchester students are celebrating another 3-0 start to the season."It's a big win for the program," said Manchester coach Brandon Baker.
Not since a 40-6 win over White's on Sept. 18, 1963 have the Squires begun a season this well, and the last time they defeated Valley was on Sept. 3, 1999.
So, yeah, Friday night's victory was a bit of a milestone, but Baker was trying to subdue the celebration.
"We look at it like, sure it's been a while since we started like this, but the most important thing is we're 1-0 in conference," he said. "We want to win a conference championship, and obviously, you have to win conference games to do that. That's how we're looking at it."
And following their first Three Rivers Conference game, they're sitting in a good spot at 1-0.
"I'm real proud of the effort we put forward," Baker said. "We were real physical and we got more physical as the game went along. The mental toughness of these guys to come out and get beat on by a big, strong Valley team for four quarters - and then win the game - I hope they realize all the little things they're putting in is starting to pay off."
Getting beat on by a bigger team is one thing, but when 10 of your guys play both offense and defense, overcoming that beating is even more impressive. And that's exactly what Manchester did.
"The Manchester offensive and defensive lines played more consistent than we did," Valley coach Jeff Shriver said. "At times we played real, real well. At times, we didn't. The consistency went to the Manchester team."
In the opening half both teams consistently had drives end with points.
Locked at 0-0 going into the second half, Valley got things started with a 12-play drive that ate up 6:32 of the clock. The only problem was, the drive ended at the Manchester 29-yard line when Valley senior Michael Lewis was stopped a yard behind the line-of-scrimmage on a 4th-and-3 play.
From there, Manchester responded with an eight-play, 71-yard drive that culminated with a 34-yard touchdown run up the middle by 5-foot-6, 135-pound sophomore Preston Penrod with 2:20 remaining in the third quarter.
"That was really a big, emotional lift for us," Baker said of the score. "Our guys really fed off that, and you could feel that on the sidelines."
The Penrod scamper may have been made possible thanks to the Valley defense being more concerned with Manchester's 5-foot-8, 195-pound running back Brady Miller.
Picking up 97 yards on the day, Miller routinely delivered harder hits than he took, wearing the Valley defense down.
"Miller ran the ball real, real hard," Shriver said. "He's a big, physical kid and has had a nice career here. He's definitely a great running back. We just didn't consistently wrap him up."
Up 7-0, Miller would get a touchdown of his own with 7:32 remaining in the game, scoring from nine yards out on a drive that he got started with a 30-yard run from the Valley 46-yard line.
"We saw some of things that happen with a young, inexperienced squad," Shriver said. "We had some glimmers of greatness on offense, then we had some glimmers of not looking very good. That's going to happen to you with a young team."
Those glimmers of greatness mostly came from Lewis, who finished the night with 85 yards on 16 carries.
Things were going the best for the TRC's leading rusher in the second quarter when he had consecutive runs of 10, 16 and 33 yards.
However, the drive which consisted of all those runs ended with a missed 28-yard field goal, nullifying the effort.
"Michael Lewis ran the ball tremendously hard," Shriver said.
Manchester finished the game with 265 yards of total offense, while Valley struggled, generating only 104 yards, which included 25 lost yards thanks to a shotgun snap sailing over sophomore quarterback Bret Cooper's head to end third quarter. The play set up a 4th-and-38 from the Valley's own 5-yard line, and gave Manchester a huge advantage in field possession through the fourth quarter.
"We had a block on, so we were coming after him anyway," Baker said about the play. "Obviously you can't scheme that someone's going to snap the ball over their head, but that was a big break for us. Capitalizing on other team's mistakes is something we've done this season, and that's something we need to continue to do."
The Squires will look to keep their undefeated season in tact Friday when they travel to Whitko for a 7 p.m. start. Valley will look to rebound from their latest setback at home against Southwood.
