AKRON - Excitement filled the air as Tippecanoe Valley hosted Three Rivers Conference rival Rochester Friday in a battle for the Bell Trophy and a tie for the confernce lead on Valley's homecoming night.
Rochester remained undeferated in conference play and made sure the Bell Trophy will remain black and gold, as the Zebras defeated Valley 34-18.After tying the game at 7-all with a 53-yard run from Keith Koser early in the second quarter, the Vikings shot themselves in the foot with a mistake-filled second quarter.
"Death Valley is always a tough place to come in and play," said Rochester coach Mark Miller. "The guys did a good job and capitalized on Valley's mistakes."
Rochester took a 14-7 lead three minutes later aided by two Valley penalties. One came on pass interference and the other on an offsides call.
Colt Meadowas scored the second of his three touchdowns of the night by running in from seven yards out.
Valley's Michael Lewis then took the ensuing kickoff 81 yards to the Rochester 9-yard line. Again Valley was called for two false start penalties on the short drive. Three plays later Luis Lara kicked a 24-yard field goal to pull the Vikings closer at 14-10.
"We had some good things that happened tonight for us," said Valley coach Jeff Shriver. "We have to play mistake-free football to win games."
The Zebras drove the field again, this time aided by two Valley personal foul penalties. The first came on a roughing the passer penalty and the second a late hit out of bounds.
Valley finished with 12 penalties for 107 yards.
Meadows scored his final touchdown of the night from two yards out to give Rochester a 21-10 lead.
After Valley started its next drive from Rochester's 40-yard line, Jordan Boggs fumbled at the 33 and Rochester's Brody Schoen picked up the ball and ran 67 yards for the score and a 27-10 lead.
"We made some mental mistakes that killed us in the second quarter," said Shriver. "We just couldn't recover from that tonight. We played them tough in the third and held them scorless and we outscored them in the fourth 8-7."
Schoen scored Rochester's final touchdown of the game, capping off a six-minute drive. He went into the endzone untouched on a quarterback keeper from the 10-yard line to increase the lead to 34-10.
Valley socred its final touchdown when Ross Miller hit Lewis for a 37-yard touchdown. Miller converted on the two-point conversion to cut the lead to 34-18.
Miller finsihed with 136 yards and a touchdown on 11-of-21 passing.
"We had some positive things happen," said Shriver. "I was happy with the passing game tonight. We made some big plays and nice passes. We will get down and evaluate both the team and the coaches and we will work on our mental mistakes in practice."
The loss dropped the Vikings to 3-4 overall and 3-2 in conference play.
"By now means is this a blow to our team or our program," said Shriver. "We have the sectional draw coming up to see who we play. We also have two conference games left to go. "We will get our mistakes under control."
Rochester ran its overall record to 6-1 and improved its TRC mark to 5-0.
