WILLOW WOOD – It might not have been a Picasso, but it’ll look just as good in the Symmes Valley Vikings art gallery of wins.

Saturday, October 16, 1999

WILLOW WOOD – It might not have been a Picasso, but it’ll look just as good in the Symmes Valley Vikings art gallery of wins.

Whistled nine times for 115 yards in penalties, the Vikings still managed to beat the Portsmouth Notre Dame Titans 20-12 Friday in a Southern Ohio Conference game.

"We had too many mental mistakes when we had chances to score," Vikings coach Herb Conley said. "It wasn’t pretty, but it was a win and we’ll take a win any way we can. We have a lot of work to do in practice if we’re going to take the next step forward."

The next step forward will be to finish with a couple of wins over Portsmouth East and Gilbert, W.Va. Those two wins could give the Vikings a home playoff game in the first round.

Symmes Valley is 6-2 overall and 3-1 in the SOC. Lucasville Valley, 4-0 in the league, clinched at least a share of the SOC title with a 41-27 win over Oak Hill Friday.

Brad Carpenter ran 26 times for 126 yards and a touchdown to lead the Vikings ground game that racked up 212 yards. Doug Montavon had 135 yards on 16 carries to lead Notre Dame,

Noah Henson’s 25-yard touchdown keeper put the Vikings ahead to start the game. Kiyo Higa kicked the extra point and it was 7-0 with 7:59 left in the quarter.

Symmes Valley put together another scoring drive capped by Henson’s 10-yard touchdown pass to Jeremy Copley and it was 14-0 with 1:20 left in the opening quarter.

Notre Dame came right back and scored on a 20-yard pass from Joe Webb to Chase Sallee on the first play of the second quarter to get within 14-6.

The game remained that way until Carpenter had a 1-yard scoring run to begin the fourth quarter and it was 20-6.

A blocked punt set up Notre Dame’s second touchdown, a 3-yard run by Montavon with 3:21 to play.

Notre Dame fell to 4-3 and 2-2 in the conference.