SPORTS

Vikings pitch shutout, beat Huntsmen

Derrick Webb
Reporter

CHILLICOTHE – A young Huntington team took a hit on the chin, Friday night.

But it's still extremely early in a newly christened season.

The combination of a stagnant offense and inexperience at the varsity level equaled out to a 32-0 loss for the Hunstmen in Week 1, at the hands of the Symmes Valley Vikings.

The Vikings (1-0) came into the contest as the 14th ranked team in Division VII.

"I thought we stopped (Symmes Valley) pretty well in the first half," Huntington coach Alan Preston said. "Then their trap at the beginning of the third quarter killed us. They started trapping to our backside and we missed some strong calls on the defensive line. They took advantage of it. We knew it would be a task coming in but I still don't think we played the best football that we could have played."

In that third quarter, Symmes Valley gained 143 of their total 245 yards on offense. On the opposite sideline, Huntington (0-1) had trouble simply moving the chains; they had two first downs all night long and just 65 total yards.

"We sputtered at times on offense," Preston said. "We couldn't get anything going at all. But (the Vikings) have a good defense. We went down early and we're that team right now where when that happens, we tend to not be able to dig ourselves out of a hole. It's the domino effect. We just have to learn from it and take away the fact that we didn't get beat by a scrub team."

One positive for the Huntsmen was the play of senior defensive lineman Billy Doyle, who constantly had his hat in on tackles and even picked off a pass.

"Billy always plays well," Preston said. "You can always count on him to be a leader. All year, teams are going to running away from him and planning their offenses around him. We saw that even tonight with Symmes Valley."

Things went awry from the start for the Huntsmen.

After rushes of 0, 2 and 2 yards, the ensuing snap on a punt attempt went over punter Tanner Knece's head. Two plays later, Symmes Valley's Collin Webb took advantage of the miscue by giving his team a 7-0 lead on a 3-yard touchdown run with 9:03 left in the first quarter.

At the 8:05 mark in the second, Webb caught an 18-yard pass from quarterback Derrek Smith but fumbled on the Huntington' 2-yard line. Vikings tight end Curtis Lybrand was in the right place at the right time as he picked the ball up and plunged in for the Vikings' second score of the night, making it 13-0 Symmes Valley (missed PAT).

That score remained until 7:21 left in the third, when Smith connected with Jarod Sheppard on a 14-yard touchdown pass over the top of the defense. After yet another missed PAT, Symmes Valley led 19-0.

The Vikings added a score at the 1:45 mark in the third on a 13-yard run from Webb and another with 4:35 left in the fourth, thanks to a 5-yard run from Smith to round out the final score.

Webb led the Vikings, carrying the ball 12 times for 70 yards and two scores. Smith went 6-for-11 passing for 52 yards, including a touchdown and interception each. The quarterback also carried the ball four times for 12 yards.

For the Huntsmen, Austin Barker rushed 10 times for 19 yards while Knece and quarterback Elijah McCloskey combined to go 3-for-16 passing for a total of 28 yards.

Huntington now sets its sights on Wellston, who it will host next Friday. Symmes Valley will host Buffalo (West Virginia).

"We're going to win some football games," Preston said. "We haven't seen Wellston at all on film because they have a brand new coach. We're going to go down to Jackson tomorrow and watch (Jackson) play. We've just got to get our young kids repetition. I hope people realize tonight was a lot closer of a ballgame than what the score might suggest. We played some good defense. We just have to get the offense in rhythm."

dwebb@chillicothegazette.com

Twitter: @dw1509