SHELBY — Scoring was not an issue Friday night for unbeaten Shelby.
The Whippets’ 532 yards of total offense — 279 through the air and 253 on the ground — proved too much for River Valley as Shelby cruised to a 55-21 win.
Junior standout Brayden DeVito led his team offensively with seven total TDs. He completed 18-of-22 passes for 279 yards, two scores and one interception.
On the ground, DeVito ran 12 times for 116 yards and five TDs. The other half of Shelby’s backfield, junior Marcus Gumbert, tallied 130 yards rushing via 18 carries.
“It was really their (offensive line) game,” DeVito said. “They dominated up front and offensively the whole game was on them.
“I had the easy job of just sitting back there, feeling comfortable as ever. They did the hard work tonight,” he said.
Gallery: River Valley at Shelby
Shelby prepared for pass-heavy River Valley offense
Led by senior quarterback Chase Ebert, River Valley silenced the Shelby faithful just three plays into the game.
With only 25 seconds off the clock, Eli Snyder caught a pass from Ebert and turned it into a 54-yard score to take an early 7-0 lead.
The Whippets responded by scoring 21 unanswered points in 12 minutes of play.
Leading up to Friday’s game, DeVito said his team prepared for the Vikings’ high-powered offense, as well as Ebert’s versatility.
“Our mentality was it was on the defensive backs to stay in coverage,” he said. “I think we did a pretty good job executing and flipping the page when they’d have an explosive play.”
Shelby’s defense only allowed two more scores after its misstep early in the first quarter.
Ebert completed 17-of-40 passes for 232 yards, 2 TDs and three interceptions. He also ran for 123 yards and a score.
“We dropped eight in coverage most of the night and we had three guys to really try and put pressure on him (Ebert),” said Shelby coach Rob Mahaney.
“I thought our kids did a really good job of continuing to play … I give a lot of credit to those guys and obviously our secondary, who made him (Ebert) earn a lot of what he did tonight.”
Mahaney focused on continued improvement
Four different Whippets found their way into the end zone Friday. Along with DeVito, Brady Bowman, Karsen Homan and Dennis Lafon each scored a TD. Senior receiver Nic Eyster caught seven passes for 92 yards.
Mahaney said he was proud of the way his team executed at a high level offensively.
“Our offensive line played extremely well to be able to do all of those things,” he said. “It’s nice to scheme this or that up, but without them blocking up front nothing really matters.”
Minutes after the game ended, Mahaney said his team was focused on improvement.
The Whippets will travel to Bellville next week to face a gritty Clear Fork team, which beat Marion Harding 14-13 Friday night.
“We need to be a better team next week,” Mahaney said. “We’ve got to continue to get better every single day, every single week and that’s our goal moving forward.”
Vikings struggled to capture momentum
River Valley coach Matt Waddle said the Vikings are a tempo team.
“We try to base our offense off of positive plays and when you don’t have those plays, it kind of puts us in a situation where maybe we’re not as aggressive,” he said.
“You’ve got to be able to throw the ball and catch the ball in our offense and at times we did that, and at times we didn’t.”
The Vikings will play at home their next two games. Up next is Highland (3-4), followed by the Galion Tigers (4-3).
“Hopefully playing at home will help us out, although we were a pretty good road team until tonight,” Waddle said.
“We’ve just got to bounce back. Hopefully we came out fairly healthy tonight and we’ve got a different opponent next week in Highland that’ll present different challenges for us.
“We’ve just got to look at ourselves and see how we can get better,” he said.
(Below are more photos from Friday night, including the marching bands from Shelby High School and River Valley High School.)
Scoring summary: Shelby 55, River Valley 21
1st quarter
River Valley — Eli Snyder 54-yard pass from Chase Ebert, 7-0
Shelby — Brayden DeVito 54-yard run, 6-7
Shelby — DeVito 10-yard run, 14-7
2nd quarter
Shelby — DeVito two-yard run, 21-7
River Valley — Ebert 69-yard run, 14-21
Shelby — Brady Bowman nine-yard pass from DeVito, 28-14
Shelby — DeVito 11-yard run, 35-14
Shelby — Karsen Homan 11-yard pass from DeVito, 42-14
3rd quarter
River Valley — Kolton Lang 30-yard pass from Ebert, 21-42
Shelby — DeVito one-yard run, 49-21
4th quarter
Shelby — Dennis Lafon one-yard run, 55-21