Pre-media
Gainesville Daily Register

Valley View freshman Tyson Price throws a pass.  The Eagles host Lindsay on Friday.

Eagles, Knights seek confidence
Tanner Spearman, Sports Editor, Gainesville Daily Register
 

With district play looming, confidence will be on the line Friday in Valley View when the Eagles host Lindsay at 7:30 p.m.

Valley View (1-2) fell 42-39 in Tioga last week but won the last time it played at home.

Eagles coach Curtis King said Valley View played the hardest it has since 2019 last week. He said the Eagles are confident, but this game is important to keep building.

“I thought the Tioga game, we played extremely hard,” King said. “The boys were disappointed when we lost. It’ll be interesting to see how we come out this week, because we should come out fired up, ready to play. Should be a great game.”

Lindsay (0-3) is coming off a 21-14 home loss to Callisburg but has won its past two meetings with Valley View. The Eagles last won in 2017.

Lindsay coach Casey Jones said the Knights have played well at times against a tough schedule, but they need a win.

“I would have liked to have won a couple of these games early on just so our kids could have a little confidence going into district next week,” Jones said. “But I think our kids have had to battle. They’ve been in some physical contests (and) close games. They’ve experienced that, so I think all that will help us when we get in district.”

Valley View freshman quarterback Tyson Price has improved each week. He passed for 327 yards and five touchdowns with one interception last week against Tioga. He has two dangerous receivers in seniors Lawson Links and Wyatt Huber who will challenge the Lindsay secondary.

Sophomore running back Carson Rojas is having a breakout year of his own. He ran for 116 yards and two touchdowns last week.

King said Price and Rojas are young, but they are already tuning into valuable players.

“Being a freshman, (Price) has played really well,” King said. “Still making some freshman mistakes that he’s gotta get away from, but overall, he’s giving us a chance to win… (Rojas) runs the ball really well. He’s young and underweight but pretty fast. As he learns to play the running back position and gets a little stronger, he’s going to be a force.”

Lindsay’s offensive leader is junior quarterback Dawson Foster. Against Seymour, he passed for 167 yards and ran for 158 with three total touchdowns. The Knights spread the ball around with several receivers playing a role, but Lindsay has struggled to get anyone besides Foster going in the run game. Colt Hanks is the second-leading rusher with 29.3 yards per game.

Jones said he wants to see the Knights run the ball effectively to feel confident they’re ready for district play next week.

“I feel like we’ve struggled a little bit the last few weeks, but we’ve played some really good defensive fronts,” Jones said. “What the defenses were giving us wasn’t necessarily run-game stuff, so we were throwing the ball a little more. I want to see us be able to line up and run the football whenever we need to, and I’ve challenged our kids to do that this week.”
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9/17/2022

Eagles blank Knights in front of Homecoming crowd
Tanner Spearman, Sports Editor, The Gainesville Daily Register

Valley View freshman, Tyson Price throws the ball under pressure from Lindsay senior Yash Patel.  The Eagles won 24-0 Friday.

Lindsay hurled a desperate pass down the field in the dying seconds Friday night, but Valley View finalized a great defensive game with one last interception.

The Valley View football team blanked Lindsay 24-0 at John Kassen Field in front of a big homecoming crowd.

Valley View (2-2) looks like a much-improved football team from the past two years with one non-district game remaining.

Lindsay (0-4) is still seeking answers with district play beginning next week.

Valley View coach Curtis King said the Eagles had to work hard to win.

“Lindsay’s a good team,” King said. “I don’t care what their record is. They play hard. Our kids played really well. We didn’t do much on offense the first quarter, but we saw things. We missed a couple blocks. We missed a couple holes, a couple of easy throws. They settled down and played in the second quarter.”

The Eagle defense forced five turnovers. Drake Whetzel, James Miles and Dario Cervantes each recovered a Lindsay fumble. Wyatt Huber and Devin Gabehart each intercepted passes in the final minutes to clinch the win.

King said the defense helping Valley View win the turnover battle 5-0 was significant.

“They worked hard,” King said. “That’s the bottom line. They read their keys. We studied really hard this week on Lindsay. They did what we thought they were going to do. We just played really good on defense.”

The Knights came close to scoring on a couple occasions, but the Eagles stood tall each time. With 12 seconds to go until halftime, Lindsay senior Dawson Foster broke free on a long run down the sideline looking to score, but the Eagles knocked him out of bounds at the 3-yard line. The clock expired during the play, denying the Knights’ offense one more shot. Valley View led 14-0 at the break.

Late in the third quarter, the Knights drove into the red zone. Lindsay ran the ball from the 6-yard line but fumbled, and Cervantes recovered it at the Valley View 9-yard line. The Eagles drove down the field and got inside the Lindsay 1-yard line, but ultimately settled for a 20-yard field goal by junior Molly Moss after a nice defensive stand from the Knights.

Huber said the Eagles won with good teamwork.

“Everyone played as a team,” Huber said. “It was great… Everyone’s playing together right now. It’s awesome.”

Valley View freshman Tyson Price threw for 194 yards and three touchdowns. Huber and fellow seniors Lawson Links and Jake Slover caught the touchdown passes. Huber caught eight passes for 96 yards, while Links caught six for 80 yards. Sophomore Carson Rojas rushed 27 times for 122 yards.

For Lindsay, Foster threw for 89 yards and rushed for 104. Fellow senior Hayden Ellender led the receivers with eight catches for 54 yards.

Links said the offense improved as the game progressed.

“We definitely started off slow,” Links said. “But a little bit of pep talk picked us up a little bit, and we knew what we had to do.”

Maxpreps
Stats;
Passing: Tyson Price completed 16 of 29 attempted for 191 yards.

Rushing: Carson Rojas had 29 carries for 125 yards

Some more Valley View history, with the first field goal kicked by a female player.  Molly Moss kicked a 27 yard field goal.

Wyatt Huber was the “Player of the Game” against Lindsay.
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