Vikings’ Explosive Offense is Too Much for Blind Brook
It took the Valhalla football team just one play from scrimmage to show that Saturday evening’s homecoming game against Blind Brook would be full of action.
Junior quarterback Miro Ronac found Tyquan Raines wide open down the right sideline on a fly pattern for a 65-yard touchdown, setting the stage for a night of fireworks from the Vikings, who later scored four unanswered touchdowns en route to a 34-7 rout of the Trojans.
“We had game-planned it and we saw something on film,” said Vikings coach Kevin Martins afterwards about the Ronac-to-Raines TD that gave Valhalla a 6-0 lead just 16 seconds into the contest. “We thought we could run that play and we were able to run it with some success.”
Blind Brook did manage to respond to the early jolt by the Vikings and actually grabbed the lead three minutes later after going 59 yards on six plays on its opening drive. With the extra point, the Trojans held their only lead of the game, but it wouldn’t last long.
Valhalla, now 3-2 this year, answered with a 10-play, 61-yard drive that began with Ronac calling signals and ended with him watching from the sidelines with an apparent shoulder injury as backup quarterback Terrance Tribble lobbed a third-and-nine pass into the right side of the end zone that James Best pulled out of the sky for a 19-yard touchdown. Tribble then connected with Mike Linnane on a pass to the left for the two-point conversion that gave the Vikings a 14-7 lead with 3:47 remaining in the opening quarter.
“Terrance was ready to step in,” said Martins. “Terrance has been in the program for six years. He’s played quarterback before. We’ve got to run things a little bit differently with Terrance in there, but there’s things he does very well. And there’s things that most quarterbacks in Class C can’t do that he can do, so we’re still a very good offense, obviously. We were able to score 27 points after Miro went out, so Terrance did a good job.”
The Vikings also got some help from Blind Brook early in the second quarter as a wayward snap from center by the Trojans gave them possession a mere five yards from the end zone. On first down, Christian Alvarado took the ball to the 1-yard line and Tribble scored on the next play. His pass to Raines on the two-point attempt fell short, though, and the Vikings had to settle for a 20-7 lead.
The score stayed the same the rest of the half even though Valhalla recovered another high snap on a Trojan punt at the 5-yard line again midway through the second quarter and Raines picked off a pass and ran to the Blind Brook 21 with 1:45 left on the clock.
Early in the third quarter, Tribble was intercepted for the second time, but Blind Brook failed to take advantage thanks to a pair of penalties and then a vicious third-down hit by Linnane on quarterback Jon Stern. Late in the quarter, the Vikings got on the scoreboard again as Alvarado ran for a first down out of a punt formation and, two plays later, Tribble threw a short pass to Raines, who scampered untouched down the left sideline for a 36-yard touchdown.
Tribble’s pass to Jordan Einhorn for the two-point conversion gave Valhalla a 21-point lead with just under three minutes left in the third quarter. According to Martins, the Vikings’ scoring drive, kept alive with the timely run by Alvarado as Valhalla was set to punt, happened by chance.
“We actually didn’t call it,” said Martins. “It wasn’t a called fake on the punt. On the snap, Christian had a little trouble catching it and then he saw that he had the alley. He’s our running back and he’s got speed and he knew he could beat ’em. Once he started to run, I knew he was gonna get there and he was able to.”
The Vikings added their final touchdown on a seven-play, 60-yard drive that started in the third quarter and concluded 72 seconds into the fourth when Alvarado broke some tackles and raced 36 yards down the left sideline into the end zone. The kick for the point after was blocked, but it hardly mattered with the Vikings leading by 27 points, though Martins wasn’t about to relax.
“That scoreboard is no indication of what this game was,” he said. “I wasn’t comfortable with our lead until there were four minutes left in the game.”
By then, Linnane had provided the Viking homecoming crowd with one more highlight, a 40-yard run to midfield that got Valhalla out of poor field position. When the final seconds ticked off the clock, Martins could start to turn his attention to next Friday’s showdown against unbeaten Rye Neck, a game that figures to be played without his starting quarterback.
“We’ll find out what it is,” he said of Ronac’s shoulder injury that appeared to be similar to the one he suffered last year. “More than anything, I hope it’s alright because I feel bad for the kid. He’s such a competitor, he has so much pride and just loves playing and being there with his teammates. I just feel terrible for him. Hopefully, it all works out.”
Whether or not Ronac is available, Martins expects his Vikings to be up for the challenge of facing a team that has been shutting out one opponent after another this season.
“We have three kids on the roster who play quarterback between Miro, Paul (Viviano) and Terrance,” he said. “So we’ll be alright. We’ve got a week to get it ready, so we’ll get it ready.”
Andy is a sports editor at Examiner Media, covering seven high schools in the mid-Westchester region with a notebook and camera. He began there in the fall of 2007 following 15 years as a candid photographer for the largest school picture company in the tri-state area.
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