BEAUREGARD — Bend but don’t break seemed to be Valley High School’s philosophy Friday night as the Rams picked up their first win of the season in a 27-0 victory against the Beauregard Hornets.

Valley Head Coach Buster Daniel said Beauregard was able to move the football but his defense came up clutch when it mattered.

“Beauregard has some good players over there. They are young like us,” he said. “They have some playmakers on their side, and we had to contain them tonight. They had a lot of big plays on us. We bent but didn’t break.”

Valley Sophomore wide receiver Kadarell Hutchinson scored the game’s first touchdown in the second quarter.  

Beauregard countered with a 70-yard pass from senior quarterback Carson Blitckman to junior wideout Keyshon Tolefree.

However, the Valley defense remained stingy at the goal line. The Rams stopped the Hornets on fourth down in the red zone and took over possession with less than two minutes left in the first half.

On the ensuing drive, Valley’s junior running back Josh Heath took the third play of the drive 80 yards for a score. Daniel opted for the two-point conversion after missing the earlier PAT and sophomore running back BJ Baker converted on the conversion attempt.

With less than a minute to play, Beauregard moved the ball into the red zone again with a big play from Blitckman to Tolefree. But a completion to senior wide receiver Jaion Goodson resulted in a fumble into the end zone that was recovered by Valley.

Valley finished the night with more than 300 yards on the ground, mostly taking control of the line of scrimmage in the second half.

“We didn’t play very well in the first half,” Daniel said. “We came out in the second half and said we were going to run the football and our guys did a good job.

In the second half, Baker scored on an 11-yard rush on Valley’s first possession to put the Rams up 20-0.

From there, the Valley defense made another fourth-down stop after giving up a 50-yard run by Beauregard senior running back Ashton Moss late in the third quarter.

After a Valley drive stalled with about 10 minutes left in the fourth quarter, Beauregard’s hopes of a comeback faded when Blitckman’s pass over the middle was tipped and intercepted by senior defensive lineman Jaiden Hamlin near mid-field.

Valley capped off that drive with another Baker touchdown giving him two on the night.

In the final minutes, Beauregard drove down the field once again, falling short of the goal line by one yard as the clock turned to zeros, preserving the shutout for Valley.

Friday night’s win was Valley’s first of the season, and more importantly, bumping the Rams up to 1-0 in region play.

“We talk about being region champs. We talked about it all fall, and if we are going talk about then we have to be about it,” Daniel said. “All week, we talked about how you can’t win them all until you win the first one.”