Moriarty’s early TD run, late INTs highlight Valley win over Rochester
- Val T.
- Aug 30, 2025
- 6 min read
Controversial call takes away apparent Rochester fumble recovery
BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS
Sports Editor, RTC
Never has a Tippecanoe Valley football fan been happier that their quarterback threw an incomplete pass.
Grady Moriarty ran 3 yards to complete a game-opening touchdown drive, and Hudson Shepherd and Owen Omondi ended Rochester’s last two drives with interceptions as the Vikings held off host Rochester 7-2 in the Bell game at Barnhart Field Friday.
Rochester had a 243-170 advantage in total yards, but they committed three turnovers to Valley’s none. After committing eight penalties last week against Plymouth, Valley only committed one penalty for five yards.
Rochester’s only points came when defensive end Grant Clark tackled Omondi in the end zone for a safety on a third-and-11 play from the Valley 1 with 1:01 left.
Valley improved to 2-0. Rochester dropped to 1-1.
Valley won their seventh straight Bell game. Rochester has not won the Bell since 2017.
But the game’s most memorable play was an incomplete pass with 5:09 left and Valley leading 7-0. Facing third-and-6 from their own 7, Valley quarterback Hunter Stage pitched underhanded to his right with two hands in the direction of Moriarty.
The ball went through Moriarty’s hands and hit the turf, and Rochester’s Matt Crossland fell on the ball at the Valley 1.
But an official from the sideline moved his arms outward horizontally. Incomplete pass.
“It stings,” Rochester coach Ron Shaffer said. “It hurts. We wanted to win. There are things that didn’t go our way, things we thought should have gone our way. That’s football. The thing that was evident is – and we harp on this all the time – we’re never out of the fight, and I thought our kids fought until the end.”
Omondi followed with a 40-yard punt that was downed.
Rochester drove from the Valley 47 to the Valley 13. Beck converted a third-and-1 with a 3-yard run, and Meadows gained 9 on the next play. Beck added a 10-yard run that got the ball to the 16.
Three plays later, Shepherd stepped in front of a Carson Paulik pass that was intended for Zakk Parks and intercepted it at the Valley 2.
Shepherd said his job was to read both Paulik and Parks at the same time. He called the game “intense” and “a very hard battle.”
“I knew it was pretty short,” Shepherd said. “They were close to the end zone. They were going to pass because they needed that touchdown. But I see that, and I’m not going to let that happen. … He’s coming short, and that ball was short, and I knew I had it.”
Three plays later, Clark nabbed Omondi trying to go around the right perimeter for the safety.
Parks returned Omondi’s free kick 15 yards to midfield.
Paulik threw two incomplete passes before Omondi sealed the game with an interception with 37.4 seconds left.
“It was nerve-wracking,” Valley coach Stephen Moriarty said of the sideline mood in the fourth quarter. “You know, there was a little bit of anxiousness maybe. We had to stop him, and once we did finally get that last stop, it was a sigh of relief.”
A junior wide receiver-safety, Omondi said he is a protege of 2023 Valley grad Wade Jones, now playing safety at Taylor University. He has three interceptions in two games on the season.
“He really took me under his wing freshman year, and I learned a lot from him,” Omondi said. “I think he was our best safety in history, so him taking me under his wing really helped me grow as a player. … They would have me follow him around practice, prepare like he prepared and watch film like him. That’s what grew me into the player I am today.”
The Zebras were out of timeouts after Omondi’s interception, and Stage took a knee to end the game.
The Zebras made an adjustment to their wing-T ground attack. They put senior Jack Reffett in the game as a second tight end and put Reffett on the opposite side of the ball from Clark, the other tight end. That meant there was a balanced formation – no strong side and no weak side.
Rochester started running wingbacks Brant Beck, Trenton Meadows and Grant Holloway on sweeps. And when the sweeps started working, that loosened the middle enough for Shotts to be effective.
Beck finished with 112 yards rushing, Shotts had 56 yards, and Meadows battled through leg cramps to account for 60 yards of offense – 31 yards rushing, 29 yards receiving. Holloway added four carries for 14 yards.
“Their belly sweep was killing us all night,” coach Moriarty said. “We had a hard time stopping it. We threw the kitchen sink at it. To be honest with you, everything we had drawn up, we ran it to try to stop him, and Beck did just a great job of finding that crease, but the big thing is their blocking as well. … They do a great job, and they’re fundamentally well coached.”
With the exception of some “key penalties,” Shaffer praised the way the players executed the two-tight-end strategy.
“We played a lot of two tight ends in the second half,” Shaffer said. “We thought we could just now make them determine where they were going to put the strength of their defense, and I thought the kids executed it well.”
Rochester had a nine-play drive in the first quarter, a 16-play drive in the second quarter, a nine-play drive in the third quarter and a 13-play drive that started in the third quarter and bled into the fourth quarter. They scored on none of them.
As for the start, Valley forced a Rochester three-and-out and then drove 77 yards over nine plays and scored.
Parker had four carries for 44 yards on the drive, including a 27-yard carry to the right perimeter. Omondi converted a third-and-3 with an 8-yard carry, and Moriarty burrowed in from the 3 on the next play.
Gage Overbey added the extra point.
The ensuing Rochester drive included Beck’s 4-yard run that converted a fourth-and-inches from the Zebra 30 and included two Paulik-to-Meadows completions. The second completion resulted in a 7-yard gain, but Parker made the first down-saving tackle at the Valley 35 on fourth-and-8.
After a Valley three-and-out, Rochester followed with their 16-play drive. The drive consisted of 15 consecutive running plays, the longest of which was a 14-yard run from fullback Shotts. It ended with an incomplete pass from Paulik intended for Clark on fourth-and-10 following a false start flag and a Beck 1-yard loss.
On the first possession of the second half, Stage converted a third-and-8 by hitting Omondi for 13 yards on a waggle pass to the left. Parker followed with an 11-yard run.
With 9:56 left in the third quarter, that turned out to be Valley’s final first down.
Parker had 89 yards of total offense in the first half but just 14 in the second half.
“I think just coming off the ball hard,” Shaffer said when asked about defensive adjustments. “I mean, we were kind of being shoved around and pushed around, and I just thought the kids got moving faster after that (opening) drive.”
Beck started the next drive with a 14-yard run. Meadows, who had been receiving treatment for leg cramps, ran 7 yards to register a first down on third-and-3. Beck ran for 14 more yards down to the Valley 24.
But three plays later, on fourth-and-3 from the 17, Paulik could not handle the exchange from center Derek Wortley, and Viking senior middle linebacker Diego Gonsalez fell on it.
During the drive, Overbey, who also plays defensive end, suffered an apparent leg injury and needed to be helped off. Coach Moriarty called it a “big old bruise” afterwards but did not give a prognosis.
With Overbey out, Omondi stepped in to punt.
“I do it a little bit here and there,” Omondi said when asked how often he works on his punting. “My soccer roots kept me going for that.”
He had a 37-yard punt that Parks returned 8 yards to the Valley 48.
The Zebras began another march. Meadows converted a third-and-1 with a 3-yard run. Beck ran for 11 yards. A Shotts 7-yard run got Rochester to the Valley 10. Two more Beck runs and a Shotts run made it fourth-and-goal from the 2.
Shaffer called timeout.
Paulik then faked a handoff to Shotts and gave it to Meadows on the sweep, but Parker and Grady Moriarty sniffed it out for a 1-yard loss with 6:34 left.
Three plays later came the game’s most controversial call.
Tippecanoe Valley 7, Rochester 2
Valley 7 0 0 0 – 7
Rochester 0 0 0 2 – 2
First quarter
TV – Grady Moriarty 3 run (Gage Overbey kick)
Second quarter
(no scoring)
Third quarter
(no scoring)
Fourth quarter
RHS – Safety, Grant Clark tackles Owen Omondi in end zone
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