LIGONIER – Playing a West Noble team with just 26 players in uniform, the Tippecanoe Valley football team won with expected ease Friday night in Ligonier. Claiming their first sectional win since 2005, the Tippecanoe Valley Vikings posted 506 total yards of offense to the West Noble Chargers’ 65 in a 44-0 rout in first-round action of Class 3A Sectional 18. The Vikings advance to Friday’s sectional semifinals and will host Heritage, which pummeled No. 8 Lakeland 42-16 Friday in Monroeville. But while the Vikings were dominating the Chargers, there were a couple downers along the way. “We did a lot of things well,” Valley coach Jeff Shriver said. “It was a great victory for us, there’s no doubt about that, but there was also a little bit of defeat in it. (Junior wide receiver) Tanner Andrews probably has a concussion. He went out right after the first touchdown. We lost a kid to ejection. (Junior lineman) Jaron Kidd was ejected for an unsportsmanlike penalty. We haven’t seen film. He said he didn’t do it, but the officials said he did and that’s what it is. We had called a timeout to say, ‘Hey, knock it off.’ Obviously, we didn’t knock it off.” With his expulsion from the game, Kidd will not be eligible to play against Heritage and the loss of Andrews would be a huge blow to the Vikings. Going into the game, Andrews had caught 35 passes for 693 yards and six scores, then added another two nabs in the win, including a 29-yard touchdown for the game’s first score. That catch was his last of the game, but with Valley’s rushing attack tallying 400 yards, receivers weren’t too busy anyway. Leading Valley’s running game was senior Justin Gunter, who ran for 144 and two scores on 14 carries, while junior Chris Torpy added another 141 and a score on just 11 attempts. “I thought Gunter and Torpy had a great night,” Shriver said. “ (Junior quarterback) Ben (Shriver) had a nice night throwing the football. We didn’t have to throw it a lot.” Ben Shriver completed 7 of 12 pass attempts for 106 yards and two scores, one to Andrews and the other to Jacob Ritchey. Ben Shriver and Ritchey also scored rushing touchdowns, rounding out all of Valley’s scoring, despite losing another offensive lineman before the game even started. With junior guard Josh Tucker and junior tackle Nick Gamble already out for the game, junior center Daryl Wright then turned his ankle in the pregame, sidelining him as well. Despite so many linemen going down, the Vikings still owned the line of scrimmage. “Football teams are built to have to deal with adversity,” Shriver said. “That’s part of the game of football. Our football team dealt with it well tonight. We’re going to go to work next week and get guys healthy and get guys replaced, finding ways to do things we need to do at home against Heritage.” Against Heritage, Shriver knows he’ll face a team much different than West Noble, which had just four seniors on its roster. “I know they’re a very good football team,” he said of Heritage. “They have 26, 27 seniors on the football team. They are a very physical football team and they spread the ball around a little bit.”
TIPPECANOE VALLEY 44, WEST NOBLE 0 TV 13 13 18 0 – 44 WN 0 0 0 0 – 0 TV WN 1st downs 13 6 Rushing yds 400 30 Passing yds 106 35 Comp-Att-Int 7-12-0 5-16-3 Total offense 506 65 Fumbles/lost 3/1 3/2 Penalties/yds 7/65 1/5 Punts/avg 1/38 3/30
First Quarter TV – Ben Shriver 29 pass to Tanner Andrews (Jacob Ritchey kick) 8:13, 7-0 TV – Chris Torpy 43 run (conversion failed) 3:52, 13-0 Second Quarter TV – Shriver 5 pass to Ritchey (kick blocked) 8:43, 19-0 TV – Justin Gunter 24 run (Ritchey kick) 5:04, 26-0 Third Quarter TV – Gunter 75 run (conversion failed) 11:40, 32-0 TV – Shriver 23 run (kick failed) 9:05, 38-0 TV – Ritchey 4 run (kick blocked) 5:57, 44-0
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS Rushing – Valley, Gunter 14-144, Torpy 11-141, Nolan Sponseller 5-29, Dan Miller 4-27, Shriver 2-23, Garrett Bell 3-17, Jared Littlejohn 1-14, Ritchey 4-5, Brandon Murphy 1-4, Aaron Hoffman 2-(-4); West Noble, Erik Mawhorter 20-42, Chandler Hyndman 5-10, Landon Stover 6-(-22). Passing – Valley, Shriver 7-12, 106 yds, 2 TDs; West Noble, Stover 5-16, 35 yds, 3 INTs. Receiving – Valley, Andrews 2-40, Sponseller 1-23, Mason Teel 1-22, Dayton Cohagan 1-9, Gunter 1-7, Ritchey 1-5; West Noble, Hyndman 2-21, Johnny Miller 1-9, Keith Gibson 1-5, Andrew Skaggs 1-0.
