PREP FOOTBALL: Valley takes dramatic win over Smiths Station to snap two-game skid

To view a photo slideshow of this game, click here.

VALLEY — After two losses in as many weeks, the Rams needed to remember how to win before heading down to Vigor for the first round of the playoffs next week.

And, for a minute Friday night, it looked like they weren’t going to get a chance.

A Michael Nolin 5-yard touchdown run put Smiths Station up 2 with a little more than 7 minutes to play.

But that’s when the stagnating Valley offense got going.

“We were telling each other, ‘We can beat these guys.’ We knew we could beat them,” senior running back Richard Hopkins said. “We had to go in there and get together.”

Hopkins provided the driving force behind a 11-play, 67-yard drive — exclusively on the ground — and Enrique Florence punched it in from 8 yards with 1:24 to go to give the Rams all they needed in a 22-16 win at Ram Stadium.

“It meant everything in the world,” Valley coach Mike McCombs said. “We didn’t want to get on that bus without winning this football game.”

It wasn’t for lack of trying by the visiting Panthers.

Smiths Station converted a fourth-and-8 and a second-and-20 in the final 40 seconds to drive down to the Valley 22 and have a chance to tie the game.

But Nolin’s last-second pass to his favorite target on the night and throughout the season — senior Rod Austin — fell incomplete in the end zone.

It was the fifth loss by 9 points or less this season for the Panthers (2-8).

“I told them great things are going to come from this season, because it’d have been easy for them to give up a long time ago,” Panthers coach Mark Rose said. “They fought like champions tonight against a good football team.

“We come up short, just about like we did in every game, and I’m just proud to be associated with them.”

Smiths Station used two long drives in the first half to control the game early against the Rams (7-3).

The Panthers took the ball 68 yards on 15 plays in their first possession, pulling ahead with a 30-yard Nolan Carrero field goal.

Then, after Tim’Vontae Walker put the Rams ahead, Smiths Station drove 79 yards on 14 plays, with Lorenzo Betties punching it in from a yard to give the Panthers a 10-7 lead that they took into halftime.

In the second half, the Rams put that aforementioned punishing ground game to work.

Valley scored on two 11-play drives, with Hopkins, Walker and Florence putting the Panthers’ defense through the meat grinder for 121 yards on 28 carries.

The Rams didn’t pass once after the break.

“We just tried to run away from number 24 (Demarcus Jones), because that son of a gun is a heck of a football player,” McCombs said. “That was it. We just tried formations, get angles, get away from that guy.”

Hopkins finished with 75 yards and a score on 14 carries and Florence led the defense, which stopped Smiths Station on a fourth-and-goal from the 4 at the beginning of the fourth quarter, with 12 tackles.

“This got our minds back right, and everybody back on the same page,” Rams quarterback Ty Still said. “We needed it real big. We had two weeks of losing hard-fought ballgames. And coming out and doing this, it feels good to get back on track.”

Nolin finished 11-of-21 for 181 yards — also rushing for 68 yards and a score — and Austin caught six passes for 80 yards in his last game for Smiths Station.

“We just come up a few seconds short,” Rose said. “A few yards short.”

dmorrison@oanow.com | 737-2568