Whitko quarterback Cade Bechtold is stacked up by the Tippecanoe Valley defense during the 43-7 Vikings win Friday night. (Photos by Mike Deak)

SOUTH WHITLEY – The flag at Valley will fly high on Friday night. After a convincing 43-7 win at Whitko, not only did Valley pick up its first win of the season, but head coach Steven Moriarty notched his first career victory.

Valley was bound and determined from the start, and played like a team that was 4-0 and not 0-4. Scoring on its first six possessions of the game, Valley didn’t punt the ball until the fourth quarter when the starters were all but subbed out. After forcing Whitko to punt on the first possession of the game, Tanner Trippiedi and company marched down the field. Converting a third and five from the Whitko 28, Trippiedi finished the drive with a 17-yard pass to Noah Miller for the first score of the game.

It snowballed from there. Valley’s next possession had Alex Morrison and Johnny Gonsalez rattle off big runs, and Trippiedi closed out the drive with a six-yard score.

At 14-0, the game already felt like it was well on its way.

“It just comes down to their attitude,” Moriarty said, clutching a game ball signifying his first coaching win as a high school head coach. “You could see the fire in them tonight, they knew they could do it. Once they got that success right off the bat, water falls down and things start going well.”

Valley fortitude, combined with some Whitko mistakes, set up a 24-yard Wes Melanson touchdown run. Facing third and 19, Whitko committed a roughing the passer penalty on Trippiedi, then the Wildcats jumped offsides on third and four to give Valley a fresh set of downs, which Melanson finished off.

A maddening sequence of events for both clubs saw the first half come to a poignant close. Melanson thought he had an interception that was ruled pass interference on the play. Valley, however, later had Bryce Webster recover a fumble. A 49-yard pass to Dakota Gaff had Valley in business again, but a personal foul call on Valley during the play negated the penalty. The 64-yard swing had a moment Moriarty noted was nearly as important as any in the game. Stuffing choice words back in his mouth, Moriarty was halfway to midfield looking for an explanation on the play. Trippiedi, all 5-8, 140 pounds of him, met the stout coach and got him to turn around.

As order was restored, Trippiedi found Cameron Parker on the next play that went for 46 yards. A pass interference call on Whitko on the next play had their bench up in arms, and with just 12 seconds left in the half, Parker closed out the wild drive with a five-yard run. The two-point toss to Jalen Shepherd made it 29-0 and about all she wrote.

“Tripp met me halfway to save us from getting another penalty called, it was probably going to happen,” Moriarty said. “It’s just a good group of kids. They bought in and it showed all of their hard work in practice. The heart of these kids. You could see the kids being completely deflated (after the personal foul call) and I was coming over to really argue it. It was a bogus call. But it shows the character. The boys went right back and got it. How excited am I to see them go back out and perform like that. So proud as a coach for that moment.”

Morrison and Trippiedi added rushing scores in the second half, making Valley six-for-six in touchdowns to begin the game.

Trippiedi was 7-11 passing for 146 yards and added 19 yards on the ground. Morrison led the ground attack with 69 yards, Valley with 192 rushing yards overall.

Whitko’s lone ray of sunshine came midway through the fourth quarter when Alex Dial broke off a 63-yard touchdown run to snap the shutout with 3:18 to go. Whitko has not scored outside of the fourth quarter, to which Whitko has also been the final score of those games to which opponents have outscored the Wildcats 176-27 and have given up 232 points overall.

The slow starts and the lack of consistency in the first half has overshadowed what Whitko head coach Jeff Sprunger has seen away from the scoresheets.

“I reinforce every single day that I love them and am proud of them, they just continue to go out and fight,” said Sprunger. “The way they show love back to me is by playing hard. Giving that effort every single play. And if you watch them, they do.

“It would be real easy right now for my kids to not show up for practice. I have 44 kids on the roster and every single night I have 44 kids accounted for. I have been part of teams where that’s not always the case. Now we are 0-5, but I guarantee come Monday, we will have 44 guys ready to play and get better. You can’t ask for anything better than that.”

Dial’s big run lifted his total to 78 yards on 10 carries. Hunter Reed added 10 rushes for 46 yards. Cade Bechtold was 3-5 passing for 23 yards. Michael Connor caught all three of those passes for the 23 yards.

Valley moves to 1-4 overall and will host Manchester next week while Whitko sits at 0-5 and visits Southwood.