Valparaiso falls in season opener

Updated: August 19, 2011 11:14PM

As far as 11-point, fourth-quarter deficits go, Mark Hoffman felt Valparaiso was in pretty good shape.

Penn was pinned back at its own 13, facing third-and-18 with almost the entire fourth quarter left to play.

“Realistically, I’m thinking (we’ll have the) ball on the 40, we’re going to score and this is going to be a ballgame again,” the Vikings coach said.

Not quite.

Penn quarterback Chad Gindelburger beat two Valparaiso defenders in the backfield, then beat another Valparaiso defender to the edge to rip off a 24-yard run to give the Kingsmen a huge first down with 10 minutes to go in the game.

Valparaiso never touched the ball again.

Penn held the ball for the entire fourth quarter — starting with a Valparaiso punt on the first snap — to salt away a 21-10 victory over the defending regional champion Vikings.

The 20-play, 79-yard drive ended with the Kingsmen kneeling on the ball three times at the Valparaiso 7-yard line.

For a Vikings offense that had just started to find its groove a little, it was maddening.

“We just kept looking at the clock and it just kept moving,” said Valparaiso quarterback Paul Andrie, who also played defensive back on a few plays during the drive. “We just had to get a stop.”

The Vikings had their chances. The first ended with Gindelburger’s long run. The next came on fourth-and-3 at the Penn 44. The Kingsmen lined up, most likely to try to draw the Vikings offsides — and it worked.

“Everyone in the stadium knew they weren’t going to run a play there, and we had three guys jump offsides,” Hoffman said.

That was the story of the game for the Vikings — mistakes. The kinds of mistakes a rather experienced squad like this one probably shouldn’t be making.

“Lack of discipline,” said senior Bryon Duncan. “We just have to focus.”

Valparaiso fell behind 21-3 early, allowing Penn to score touchdowns on its first three possessions — each featuring a long Gindelburger pass when a Penn receiver got behind the Valparaiso secondary. The first was a 42-yard pass to Stephen Lesure that set up a Matthew Hummel touchdown run. The next two were a 43-yard touchdown pass to Travis Nethercutt and a 29-yard scoring pass to Travis Adkins.

Gindelburger finished a sparkling 11-of-13 for 167 yards and the two scores.

“You can’t make those kinds of mistakes and expect to beat a good team — and Penn’s a good team,” Hoffman said.

Offensively, the Vikings sputtered, too. After a solid first drive during which Andrie connect on 5-of-6 passes for 50 yards ended in a 25-yard Ryan Nix field goal, Valparaiso couldn’t do much of anything against the Kingsmen. Andrie checked down to the tailback Duncan repeatedly, hitting him 11 times for 86 yards, including a 16-yard touchdown with 17 seconds left in the half to cut the lead to 21-10. It was Duncan’s first action since being suspended from the postseason last year for violating the school’s athletic code.

Andrie — in three quarters — was 14-of-21 for 134 yards. Meanwhile, standout junior running back Andrew Kittridge had eight carries for 43 yards.

“We got out of the game we wanted to get into,” Hoffman said. “We thought we were going to be a running team, but we got into this throwing game because they controlled the ball and moved the ball and we gave up three third-down-and-20 plays. "I don’t think Kittridge carried the ball enough, and that was not by design.”

Now the Vikings — who started last season 13-0 — face the daunting task of a trip down to Carmel next week, and the possibility of being 0-2 when Duneland Conference play starts.

“Put it past you,” Andrie said. “Going into next week against a really tough opponent in Carmel, you can’t really think too much about this game now. Just watch some film and then put it away for the rest of the year.”

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