Julian Montrevil has only known defeat in the annual Battle of the Valley Football game, played annually between the Valley Central Vikings and the Wallkill Panthers.

Not anymore.

Montrevil ran for a fourth-quarter touchdown to give the Vikings their first lead of the game, and Luke Watson made a game-sealing interception as the Vikings defeated the Panthers, 20-14, on Friday at Robinson Field at Wallkill High School.

“Senior year, I couldn’t go out with a loss,” Montrevil said. “It means everything. It’s a different culture here. I’m excited.”

The helmet has been in Wallkill’s custody since the Panthers defeated the Vikings, 7-0, on October 15, 2021. Before that, the helmet resided in Montgomery as the Vikings won the previous four helmet games.

It’s also the first time the Vikings have opened the 2014 season 2-0 with wins over Pine Bush and Wallkill.

“It meant everything to us,” Watson said. “We’ve lost it for the past (three) years, so this is what we needed.

This is what we needed as a team, and we accomplished it. We worked together, and we worked hard. We stayed in the game.”

After Montrevil’s run gave the Vikings a 14-7 lead, the Panthers tied the game on a 17-yard pass from quarterback J.J. Detz to Sean Petricek.

“My kids played hard through the whole thing,” Wallkill coach Joe Pillitteri said. “That was the talk in the post-game huddle. We showed a lot of heart. We were in position to do it, but at the end of the day, we just made too many mistakes.”

The Vikings took the lead for good with 5:07 remaining in the game on a 45-yard touchdown run by Mekhi Joseph. The Vikings elected to put extra pressure by calling Montrevil’s number for the two-point conversion, but the Panthers’ defense kept him out of the end zone.

“We wanted to put it away,” Valley Central coach Scott Rumsey said. “Wallkill did a great job of stepping us and then we had to step up and play defense and thank goodness we did it.”

The Panthers returned the ensuing kickoff to their own 39, and marched to the Vikings’ 36-yard line, where Watson intercepted Detz to seal the Vikings’ victory.

“I saw it in the air, and I knew I had to make a play,” Watson said. “I promised myself; I promised my team that I was going to get this back for us.”

Just like that, the Vikings have won their first two games, after opening the season the week before with a 30-6 win over the Washingtonville Wizards.

“It’s a new era,” Watson said. “New Valley Central Vikings.”

However, it was the Panthers who struck first as junior running back Kent Glasgow carried the load in a nearly five-minute drive that took 11 plays and ended in Glasgow’s 4-yard touchdown run.

“Kent’s an awesome guy who’s been in the weight room all winter long and all spring,” Pillitteri said. “He lives there, comes to every single workout we do and now, his success is coming to fruition.”

However, the Vikings stole the momentum when quarterback Jayden Orozco found Denzel St. John on a 37-yard Hail Mary pass in the end zone to tie the game at 7-7.

“He was talking to me all day,” Orozco said. “He was like, ‘get me the ball.’”

That gave the Vikings all the momentum.

“It brought all our energy by a lot, and our confidence as well. We knew we had to win this. We knew we were going to win this. We just needed a confidence booster.”