The Valley Central Vikings had a big first half.

Despite an offensive slowdown in the second half, the Vikings build a big enough lead, and the defense stood tough as they routed the FDR Presidents 34-7 in a non-league football game at Valley Central High School in Montgomery.

It was a festive way to celebrate Homecoming and Senior Night.

This feels great,” running back Jason Montgomery said. “As a team, there’s a lot of things we’ve got to clean up. Even in this game, the score doesn’t reflect how we should have performed and how I think we can perform in the future.”

The Vikings also got back into the win column coming off their first loss of the season, a 39-22 defeat to the Our Lady of Lourdes Warriors.

Most of the first half was spent in the Presidents’ territory. After a three-and-out, the Vikings took over on the FDR 29-yard line. A 10-yard run by Montgomery set up a run by Triston Wright toward the end zone. However, Wright lost the ball, but Cole DeRonda came up behind him and landed on the ball in the end zone for the Vikings’ first touchdown.
“That was kind of lucky,” DeRonda said. “It’s all about the little things like coach always tells us. We keep following the play and keep playing.”

The defense kept playing on the next drive, as Gavyn Wood recovered a fumble, setting up Andrew Waite’s 10-yard touchdown pass to Austyn Robb for a 14-0 lead. Waite’s second touchdown pass – this one to Jude Revella and 1-yard touchdown run by Montgomery gave the Vikings a 27-0 lead.

“The first three games I think we only scored between zero to eight points every first half,” Valley Central coach Kyle Schneider said. “So, to come out strong and fast and put the points up on the board, and then put some pressure on the other team, I felt like that was something we needed.”

The Vikings only made one mistake that led to points. After Montgomery’s touchdown, FDR’s Darren Grant ran back the ensuing kickoff 74 yards for a touchdown, cutting the Vikings’ lead to 27-7 with 1:49 remaining in the third quarter.

“Those are the only points we let up and we need to stop looking at the scoreboard and thinking we’re better than anybody else or thinking we’re lesser than anybody else. We can’t let the scoreboard reflect how we play. We need to play like it’s 0-0 all the time and keep the intensity up all the time.”

The Vikings fumbled the ball away on their first possession and the Presidents seemed poised to take advantage.

Davion Millington, Garrett and quarterback Jonah Bomba brough the ball to the Vikings’ 1-yard line. However, the defense stuffed Garrett at the 3-yard line on fourth down to turn the ball over on downs.

“We talked about bend but don’t break,” Schneider said. “You know they’re going to get some good drives, but we’ve had a couple of good goal-line stands. I was happy that they were flying around the football, pursuing to the football, and that’s what we talk about.”

DeRonda scored the Vikings’ final touchdown of the game, a 1-yard run with 9:14 left in the game to extend the lead to 34-7.

Having returned to the win column, the Vikings will open their Class AA schedule on Friday against the Kingston Tigers at Dietz Stadium.

“It’s good to get back in the win column and get a little momentum going into the league,” DeRonda said. “We need to get some wins in the league and keep it rolling.”