HS Football: Williams Valley tops rival Tri-Valley to stay undefeated
Williams Valley's football team takes the field for warmups at Tri-Valley (Photo by Bob Lipsky).
HEGINS — Williams Valley went old school Friday night, grounding and pounding its way to a 14-7 victory over rival Tri-Valley in a Schuylkill-Colonial Blue Division game at a packed Bulldog Stadium.
Two epic drives and suffocating defense made the difference as the Vikings (5-0, 4-0 Blue) remained undefeated heading into next Friday’s showdown “Between the Pines” against Schuylkill Haven. The Hurricanes (5-0, 4-0) stayed perfect by outlasting Minersville 48-38 on Thursday night.
Let’s start with the defense. Williams Valley dominated up front on both sides of the ball, rushing for 241 yards and holding the Bulldogs to just 31 yards on the ground on 21 carries. A ferocious pass rush harassed quarterback Trey Porter all night as Tri-Valley (3-2, 2-2) finished with 112 yards of total offense.
Only a pair of interceptions by Cooper Carl halted Williams Valley drives and allowed the Dawgs to stay tied with the Vikings until early in the fourth quarter.
“I’m proud of them,” Tri-Valley coach Jeff Sampson said. “We knew coming in how good they were. … We didn’t quit. We came out and followed our game plan. The kids played hard. To hold a team like that to 14 points is great on our side, and something we can build on.
“We got beat up front. They were bigger, stronger than we were,” Sampson added. “They’ve got a good team. They’re big up front. They’re quick. They move well.”
And they move people off the ball. Those men up front enabled Williams Valley to run more than double the number of offensive plays as Tri-Valley (63-31).
That ball control showed up on two marathon marches that ended in Vikings touchdowns.
The first, a 17-play, 80-yard drive spanned the final 5:54 of the first quarter and well into the second period, taking 9:07 off the clock. Much of the drive featured quarterback Brady Shomper searching for running lanes, darting and slicing for positive yardage. Shomper finished with 32 carries for 151 yards on the ground. He capped the drive with a 1-yard run.
Tri-Valley answered with its best offensive series of the night, going 60 yards in four plays for the tying touchdown. Carl got behind the defensive back on a deep route, but the DB looked like he was in good position to intercept Porter’s pass. Instead, Carl leaped like a rebounder, picking the ball out of the air at its high point, spinning and racing to the end zone. Nathan Hillard’s extra point knotted the score 7-7 with 6:39 left in the second quarter.
“I think it’s our resiliency,” Williams Valley coach Stephen Sedesse said. “We’ve been in a lot of tough games so we knew when they threw that deep ball and tied it 7-7, we knew we could fight and come back. We’ve been in a lot of big games, so our leadership kind of took over and our line was able to move the ball, drain the clock, and we were able to punch one in there late. And that was the key to the game.”
The game stayed tied until Williams Valley executed another 17-play drive, this one covering 68 yards and lasting 7:26. This drive mirrored the first, with lots of Shomper running out of the shotgun. He capped the march with another 1-yard run.
“I’m just happy we can get that many plays and that many drives without many penalties and no turnovers,” Sedesse said. “When you run the ball a lot, you usually get caught with some turnovers. We were able to skip that tonight and play a pretty clean game outside of some penalties.”
