by JOHN HOWLEY / sportingpumpkin.com
Teays Valley used a strong opening drive and some good field position to get the early advantage at Circleville on the way to a 45-7 win Friday night.
After forcing a punt, the Vikings took their first possession 44 yards with quarterback Kole Nungester keeping the ball and going in from nine yards out for an early 7-0 lead.
Early in the second quarter, TV’s Harrison Payne had a 48-yard punt return to the Tigers’ 31. Six plays later, Jayden “Spike” Wood caught a 14-yard touchdown pass from Nungester and TV had a 14-0 lead.
Circleville got on the board a few plays later when Jake Yancey caught a pass from Hudson Phalin and took it 47 yards for a score.
Circleville’s excitement was short-lived as Griffin Gray returned the ensuing kickoff 44 yards to the Circleville 38. And Circleville shot itself in the foot with a facemask and then a personal foul after a 10-yard TV gain, which set up an eight-yard TD pass from Nungester to Peter Kale.
“Special teams have been good all year for us. Coach (Kevin) Sheets works really hard on our special teams and does a great job,” TV coach Brian Cross said. “We put a lot of time into them because we have some guys we think can really do some damage and they set up some scores for us.”
The Vikings’ defense forced another three-and-out for a short field for its offense.
On the third play, Nungester connected with Ethan Schwalbauch for a 42-yard touchdown and a 28-7 lead that stood at halftime.
“I thought special teams was a big key tonight. They had a short field to work with, it seemed, the whole first half,” Circleville coach Steve Evans said. “It was just one of those things that snowballed on us. They had a couple big returns and one drive we had two 15-yard penalties, and they already had a short field to begin with. You have to win the field position battle and we didn’t do that tonight.”
To start the second half, the Vikings recovered a short kick at midfield and used eight plays to cover 50 yards with Jeremiah Fabbro running the last four for a touchdown.
A couple plays later, Woods came through on defense as he intercepted a pass and ran it back 25 yards for another Vikings touchdown and a 42-7 lead to activate the running clock.
The Vikings added one more score when they lined up for a field goal after a drive in the fourth quarter stalled.
Maxwell Spencer, who was 6-6 on extra points in the game, lined up 41 yards out and cleared the crossbar to cap the game’s scoring.
Spencer had a 34-yard field goal last week and the situation presented a chance to test his distance in a game.
“We have a really good kicker, and we had an opportunity to practice a field goal. If we need to do that down the road, that could be the difference in the game,” Cross said. “I hope nobody’s upset that we were trying to run the score up — if we were we would have tried to score a touchdown and not kick a field goal.”
The Vikings were as healthy as they’ve been in a while with Nungester back under center after being injured in Week 3 and it was the first night they had all five starting offensive linemen playing together. But it didn’t all go as planned as they were held under 100 yards rushing.
“It’s the first time we’ve played all together but we didn’t run the football as well as what we hoped we would tonight. That was a little bothersome,” Cross said. “Give credit to Circleville for that, they did a good job stopping our run, slowing it down. So we had to go to the air and we were able to do that and got some easy scores.”
Nungester threw for 121 yards and three touchdowns.
Defensively, the Vikings held Circleville to 50 yards rushing.
“The whole idea for us was to play as physical of football as we could,” Cross said. “We’re trying to establish that kind of culture to be a physical football team. The following year we’re going into a different league and we’re going to have to be more physical. We’re trying to build it day by day and week by week.”
“They kept eight guys in the box and they bring linebackers. They’re physical and they’re fast and we were not able to pick that up,” Evans said. “They won the battle at the line of scrimmage. We knew it was going to be a battle and that’s what we talked about that we’d have to be able to establish the line of scrimmage to create some holes and be able to run the ball to open up our passing game.
“When you’re not able to do that, it makes for a long night.”
Friday was the last meeting between the two teams for the foreseeable future as Teays Valley leaves the Mid-State League for the Ohio Capital Conference next season.
The two schools battled each other for a while back when they both were in the South Central Ohio League before TV left to join the Mid-State League.
They renewed their football rivalry when Circleville left the SCOL to join the MSL in 1990. Over those 34 years, they’ve faced each other 33 times (they did not play in 2020 – the COVID year) with the Vikings coming out on top in the MSL series 17-16.
“It’s been such a long-standing rivalry from way before I was even involved in it. Both schools have a lot of pride and a lot of history,” Evans said. “You hate to see it go out like this.
“We were really hoping to put up a better fight and make a football game out of it. But hat’s off to them, they came out and dominated the football game tonight.”
Up next
The Vikings (3-3, 2-1) return home to host Amanda-Clearcreek (2-4, 0-3), which lost 48-14 to Hamilton Township Friday. Circleville (1-5, 1-2) travels to Hamilton Township (6-0, 3-0) next week.
Teays Valley 45, Circleville 7
By Quarters 1 2 3 4 F
Teays Valley 7 21 14 3 45
Circleville 0 7 0 0 7
First Quarter
TV — Kole Nungester 7 run (Maxwell Spencer kick), 7:16.
Second Quarter
TV — Jayden Woods 14 pass from Kole Nungester (Maxwell Spencer kick), 7:03.
CV — Jake Yancey 47 pass from Hudson Phalin (Payton Ford kick), 7:03.
TV — Peter Kale 8 pass from Kole Nungester (Maxwell Spencer kick), 4:27.
TV — Ethan Schwalbauch 42 pass from Kole Nungester (Maxwell Spencer kick), 1:42.
Third Quarter
TV — Jeremiah Fabbro 2 run (Maxwell Spencer kick), 8:11.
TV — Jayden Wood 25 interception return (Maxwell Spencer kick), 6:34.
Fourth Quarter
TV — Maxwell Spencer 41 field goal, 9:03.
TEAM STATISTICS
TV CV
First downs 14 5
Rushing yards 38-91 22-50
Passing yards 121 87
Comp.-Att.-Int 8-12-0 8-19-3
Total yards 212 137
Fumbles-Lost 2-2 0-0
Penalties-Yards 0-0 4-40
Punts-Ave 1-30 6-25
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING – Teays Valley — Jayden Woods 17-54, Kole Nungester 6-7, Lane Schooley 8-21, Jeremiah Fabbro 1-2, Brady Farmer 2-(-5), Carson Payne 4-12. Circleville — Jude Blair 13-39, Hudson Phalin 3-19, Austin Gray1-3, Ashdon Rickard 1-(-14), Jacob Johnson 1-0, Ray Ezell 3-3.
PASSING – Teays Valley — Kole Nungester 8-11-0-121, Brady Farmer 0-1-0-0. Circleville — Hudson Phalin 6-12-2-78, Austin Gray 2-6-1-9, Drake Klinger 0-1-0-0.
RECEIVING – Teays Valley — Jayden Woods 1-14, Harrison Payne 5-57, Peter Kale 1-8, Ethan Schwalbauch 1-42. Circleville — Jack Kline 2-16, Drew Thornsley 3-24, Jake Yancey 2-45, Brody Brisker 1-2.
