VALLEY CITY (VCSU) – The Valley City State football won a share of its third<\/p>\n
straight conference championship Saturday, defeating Mayville State 37-12 at Shelly Ellig Field.<\/p>\n
The Vikings finish with a 3-1 conference record, sharing the title with University<\/p>\n
of Jamestown. It is the third straight conference title for VCSU, which won the DAC<\/p>\n
in 2011 and the A.I.I. in 2012.<\/p>\n
Saturday was the final home game for nine Viking seniors who led an impressive<\/p>\n
performance and avenged a loss against Mayville earlier this season. VCSU led 17-0<\/p>\n
at halftime and 30-6 early in the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n
Viking senior running back Derek Elliott had a career and record-setting day,<\/p>\n
finishing with 286 rushing yards and two touchdowns on 44 carries. His 286 yards<\/p>\n
rushing tied the single-game record at VCSU, also held by John Overbey. Elliott also<\/p>\n
broke three single-season records Saturday, setting new marks for single-season<\/p>\n
rushing yards and touchdowns, and single-season total touchdowns.<\/p>\n
While Elliott led the offense, the Viking defense came up big with three takeaways<\/p>\n
and a shutdown performance. Mayville State managed just 209 yards of total offense,<\/p>\n
and just 53 yards on the ground. In a 14-9 loss earlier this season to Mayville, the<\/p>\n
Vikings allowed 283 rushing yards. On Saturday, a team effort helped the Vikings<\/p>\n
effectively shut down Mayville’s option rushing attack.<\/p>\n
Five different Viking defenders tied for the team lead with five tackles. Matt<\/p>\n
Craft, playing his final game in front of the home crowd, had 2.5 tackles for loss<\/p>\n
and a forced a fumble. Dwanye Fearon and Zach McBeain added a sack each and combined<\/p>\n
for 4.5 tackles for loss, and senior Jake Thurston had another tackle in the<\/p>\n
backfield.<\/p>\n
Neither team did much on their first four drives as the offenses battled a strong<\/p>\n
northwest wind, but the Vikings finally broke through on their fifth drive of the<\/p>\n
game. A 63-yard run by Elliott took the Vikings inside the 5-yard line, and Elliott<\/p>\n
finished off the drive moments later with his first score of the game.<\/p>\n
On Mayville’s next series, Viking defensive back Chris Cross came up with an<\/p>\n
interception, leading to a 27-yard field goal by Thomas Cortez and a 10-0 lead.<\/p>\n
Quarterback Kurtis Walls later found Mark Zinke wide open in the end zone for a<\/p>\n
6-yard touchdown with 2:52 remaining in the first half. The Vikings would add<\/p>\n
second-half touchdowns on a run by Elliott, and passes from Walls to Colby Lum and<\/p>\n
Jacob Miller.<\/p>\n
Elliott now has 1,613 rushing yards this season, 17 rushing touchdowns, and 19 total<\/p>\n
touchdowns – all of which are new school records for a single season. The old single<\/p>\n
season rushing record of 1,386 yards was held by Trevor Bakalar, who was one of<\/p>\n
Elliott’s high school coaches at Valley City. Anthony Walkine held the old rushing<\/p>\n
touchdown record of 15, and Chauncey Calhoun and Steve Battle held the old total<\/p>\n
touchdown record of 19.<\/p>\n
Up next: Valley City (5-4, 3-1) heads to California on Saturday, Nov. 16 for a game<\/p>\n
at Menlo College.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
VALLEY CITY (VCSU) – The Valley City State football won a share of its third straight conference championship Saturday, defeating Mayville State 37-12 at Shelly Ellig Field. The Vikings finish with a 3-1 conference record, sharing the title with University of Jamestown. It is the third straight conference title for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":24632,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31835"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31920,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31835\/revisions\/31920"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}