ROCHESTER — This was probably the toughest post-game talk first-year Tippecanoe Valley football coach Steve Moriarty has had to deliver yet.

Riding high on back-to-back wins the past two weeks, the Vikings arrived in Rochester with the hopes of making it three straight in the Three Rivers Conference and keeping the coveted Bell out of the hands of the rival Zebras’ hands. Instead, a surprisingly prolific passing game propelled the hosts to a 28-14 win over Valley, and the Vikings were forced to hand over the traveling trophy in front of a packed house in Rochester.

“This is hard to talk to them. Because they’re upset, we’re upset,” said Moriarty. “The younger guys, making sure that they watch them, see the Zebras take the Bell off the field so that can inspire them not to let it happen again. And you console the seniors for playing hard, and they did play hard. We’ll just have to come back and see who we’re going to win against on Sunday.”

Valley (2-5, 2-2 TRC) had game-planned for Rochester’s run game all week, and the Vikings did a respectable job in that department, holding the Zebras (6-2, 2-1 TRC) to 150 yards on the ground Friday night. What they hadn’t anticipated was a career passing night by junior quarterback Brady Perez and the Rochester receiving corps, as Perez completed 6 of 13 throws for 189 yards and two touchdowns. In fairness to Valley, it would’ve been hard to anticipate those numbers, as Perez entered the game with just 117 passing yards and a single touchdown completion total in six previous games this year.

“It just seemed like we couldn’t figure out who to cover. We worried so much about their run sometimes that we seemed to slip on our coverages,” explained Moriarty. “We just kind of got lulled to sleep by their run, and they got wide open.”

All part of the plan, said Rochester coach Brian Hooker.

“We thought we’d get some passing yards,” he said. “The way they play we knew we were probably going to have to hit some more passes and look passing a little more than what we’ve been accustomed to. That was in the game plan this week. We thought there were some holes out there.”

Perez and the Zebras opened the scoring with their biggest passing play of the night — a 73-yard touchdown completion to junior tight end Wilson Daulton that capped off a quick, three-play scoring drive at the 5:31 mark of the first quarter. The first of four successful point-after kicks by Zane Duff staked Rochester to a 7-0 lead, and the hosts never trailed, although Valley did even it up late in the period when Alex Morrison capped off a 12-play, 65-yard scoring drive with a 4-yard touchdown run with 13.3 seconds remaining in the opening stanza. Domingo Santiago’s PAT knotted the game at 7-7, but that’s as close as it would ever get.

A two-touchdown second period gave the Zebras some cushion at the half.

Sophomore fullback Bryce Abbot’s 2-yard rumble into the end zone completed a short, 25-yard TD drive at the 3:52 stop of the frame, and a three-and-out by the Vikings gave the Rochester offense another short field to work with, which the Zebras were happy to capitalize on just six plays later as Abbott again plunged into the end zone with only three seconds remaining until halftime. That critical drive featured receptions of 30 and 27 yards by Taylor Johnson and Matt Lease, and an interference call set Rochester up at first and goal from the 2-yard line. Abbott drove it home, the canons fired for the second time in the period in Rochester, and Valley found itself trailing 21-7 at the break.

“We were calling a timeout saying ‘Let’s get this ball back,’ and didn’t have much time on the clock there so telling people to get out of bounds,” explained Hooker of the last two series of the first half. “They didn’t over there on one, but they made a couple nice plays, and we got that penalty so that last play was either we’re scoring or we’re not. We had nothing left on that last play, but we thought close enough like that we could punch it in on a run.”

“They did a good job. They came ready to play. Field position again played a big part in it,” said Moriarty. “In the long run I think if we would’ve just been able to have better field position — even on kickoff we were a little lacking tonight on our special teams.”

The two teams traded field position over the third period. Valley threatened with a long drive to the Rochester 26, but Lease broke up a deep pass from Vikings QB Tanner Trippiedi to Isaac Randall along the Zebras sideline on third down, and Valley ultimately turned over on downs as Trippiedi’s attempt to Noah Miller was overthrown out of bounds at the start of the fourth. Rochester finally got its run game going to set the table for Perez, and the junior signal caller connected with senior back Corbyn Wood on a bootleg pass for a 52-yard catch and carry into the end zone that pushed the home team out to a 28-7 lead with 8:53 on the clock.

The writing was on the wall, and the Rochester student section began chanting “This game’s over,” and “Give us the Bell”.

“You’re faking some play action in there. Wood was on the backside, and we thought we could get a backside post there, and it worked out fine,” said Hooker of the backbreaker.

Valley found the end zone for the second time in Rochester on the Vikings’ final possession, rolling up 80 yards on seven plays with the game already out of reach.

Trippiedi’s 2-yard touchdown run with only 1:18 remaining was academic but brought the score to its final margin. A full 50 of Trippiedi’s 146 passing yards and 28 of his team-high 45 rushing yards for the night — ahead of Cameron Parker’s own 43-yard rushing night — came on that final drive as the sophomore QB finished 13 for 24 with a touchdown and an interception in Rochester.

The Vikings finished with a grand total of 254 offensive yards but were only able to convert twice, while the Zebras racked up 347 offensive yards and four scores.

“They have a great defense. We knew that coming in,” said Moriarty. “We were hoping to hold them down to 14 or so and then be able to take a shot or two at them.”

As disappointing as the loss was for Moriarty and company against their TRC North Division rivals, it was a big rebound win for Rochester, which came into the game on the heels of its first loss of the season — a 29-0 shutout at Northfield last week.

“We didn’t play well last week — six turnovers and all that,” said Hooker. “So we thought, hey, let’s bounce back. Let’s take care of business. This was a good week to bounce back with — the Bell Game, the rivalry game. Let’s see what we’re made of here. Let’s get physical and do what we think we can do, and for the most part it worked out.”

Rochester travels to Manchester next Friday night. Valley looks to bounce back at Wabash.