AKRON – As the final seconds ticked off the clock the home crowd could be heard chanting, “T-R-C! T-R-C!”

It was a moment the entire Tippecanoe Valley girls basketball team has been waiting for all season. The final buzzer went off and with that the Lady Vikings were officially Three Rivers Conference champions. Their final mountain to climb was hardly a molehill as Valley crushed visiting Manchester 63-26 to clinch an unblemished 7-0 TRC record.

“This is a big win for us,” remarked Valley head coach Chris Kindig. “7-0 in the conference is a bid deal, it’s a great accomplishment and that was one of our goals entering the season.”

Nothing was going to stop the Lady Vikings from winning this game. A perfect TRC record was on the line, mix that with the emotions of senior night and the Lady Squires never had a fighting chance.

Valley got an offensive boost from one of its seniors right out of the gate. Taylor Trippiedi scored 10 points for the Lady Vikings in the first quarter alone. That effort helped the ladies jumped out to a 22-6 lead after the first quarter.

Trippiedi wouldn’t score again until the third quarter, but that still did not help Manchester out. Valley added to its lead by the time the half came around. At the break the home squad led 34-11.

“We wanted to play 32 minutes and we were close to that tonight,” said Kindig. “We wanted to get off to an early lead, and we did that. I think we were up 25 or so at the half, that’s what we wanted. We wanted to play our tempo and we were able to do that tonight.”

Four Valley girls scored in double-digits in the squashing of the Squires. Trippiedi led all scorers with 14 points while Anne Secrest added 13 points to the Valley effort. Meredith Brouyette and Karis Tucker had 11 and 10 points respectively. Brouyette made her living behind the arc as she hit three shots from deep in Saturday’s win.

Manchester (7-14) entered the game behind the eight ball and stayed there the whole night thanks to a Valley defense that had 11 steals and 13 defensive boards. When The Lady Vikings were not dominating on defense or scorching the nets from the floor, they were bust hitting everything from the charity stripe. Well, almost everything.

Valley was an impressive 26-27 from the free throw line, with the only miss coming late in the fourth quarter. There really was not an area where the Vikings did not dominate the game.

That overwhelming style of play will hopefully continue, as it has all season, for Valley as the ladies enter the final week of the regular season and prepare for sectionals. One Valley player knows that anything can be accomplished by this team.

“This is really big, we’re so excited,” said Secrest. “The TRC has a lot of tough teams so we’re all excited to be able to go undefeated. We worked hard for this. Winning this really does a lot for us moving ahead.

“I think it sets the tone for the sectional. There will be tough games in the sectional, we had tough games in the TRC. That experience will carry over for us. We have a great bond, we’re all like best friends and we have what it takes to keep winning.”

Valley (18-2, 7-0) will host Peru Monday night for a 7:45 p.m. tip, weather permitting.