WILLOW WOOD — Moral victories don’t count. Just ask the Symmes Valley Vikings.

The Vikings dominated the statistics, with the exception of turnovers. The Vikings were guilty of four turnovers that enabled the Racine Southern Tornadoes to rally past the Vikings 14-7 in the season opener for both teams.

“We won everything we were supposed to except the game,” Vikings coach Rusty Webb said. “We’re just young. We made too many mistakes.”

The Vikings defense limited Southern to 141 total yards — four passing — and just four first downs. Symmes Valley had 214 total yards.

However, the Tornadoes returned an interception for one score and used a fumble to set up the winning touchdown.

“I was pretty happy with the way we played defense. We played aggressive defense. We did what we wanted,” Webb said.

“Offensively, we committed four turnovers and they had one. We just need to get better. We need to become more consistent.”

The Vikings marched 56 yards in 10 plays culminated by Kirt Shipley’s 14-yard scoring run. Kyle Meadows kicked the point after and it was 7-0.

“It was a typical drive for us,” Webb said.

But later in the quarter, Casey Hubbard picked off a Vikings pass and ran it back 37 yards for a touchdown to cut the deficit to 7-6.

The winning touchdown was set up by a fumble recovered at the Vikings 23.

Marnhout had a 15-yard run to the 9 and two plays later he scored on a 4-yard run. He also ran for the conversion and it was 14-7.

Marnhout led the Tornadoes with 126 yards on 23 caries.

Shipley had 54 yards on 12 carries, Robbie Miller 33 on seven attempts, Kyle Bowen ran for 31 yards and Chris Capper had 30.

Southern0608=14

Symmes Valley0700=7

Second Quarter

SV — Kirt Shipley 14 run (Kyle Meadows kick) 7:21 10-56

RS — Casey Hubbard 37 interception return (kick failed) 3:59

Fourth Quarter

RS — Butch Marnhout 4 run (Marnhout run) 11:50 3-23 recover fumble 15-yard ran 15 yards.

—————

RSSV

First downs412

Rushes-yards35-13749-181

Passing yards433

Total yards141214

Cmp-Att-Int1-3-04-8-1

Fumbles-lost1-13-3

Penalties-yards6-443-31

Punts-average8-27.64-41.5

—————

Individual Leaders

RUSHING — Southern: Butch Marnhout 23-126; Symmes Valley: Kirt Shipley 12-54, Chris Capper 11-30, Kyle Bowen 7-31, Stephen Thompson 6-8, Robbie Miller 7-33, Jesse Greybeal 2-17, Tyler Dickess 4-8.

PASSING — Southern: Jordan Pierce 1-3-0 4; Symmes Valley: Chris Capper 4-8-1 33.

RECEIVING — Southern: Butch Marnhout 1-4; Symmes Valley: Kirt Shipley 3-23, Kyle Meadows 1-10.