Henson rushes for 4 TDs to lead Valley View over Bellbrook

Henson kept running and scored four touchdowns to lead the unbeaten Spartans to a 42-21 victory over Southwestern Buckeye League rival Bellbrook at Niswonger Field.

“We knew that we had some really good blocking schemes coming into this game, but I didn’t expect to run this much,” said Henson, who had career highs of 17 carries and 146 yards for his second career 100-yard game.

“Honestly, I think he did it better than he’s done it,” Spartans coach Matt King said. “We trusted it, and he was hitting it up in the seam where he needed to hit it.”

Bellbrook (1-2) scored first on its third play, a 61-yard pass from Luke Benetis to Noah Barrios. After Henson tied the score, he gave the Spartans a 14-7 lead with 3:37 left in the first quarter on a 39-yard touchdown pass to Caleb Musgrove. Bellbrook answered with Makai Smith’s 59-yard catch and run for a touchdown to tie the score 14-14 in the final minute of the first quarter.

Henson’s 7-yard run put the Spartans up 21-14 at halftime. At halftime the coaches had a heart-to-heart talk with the defense, and that group held Bellbrook to a late touchdown drive.

Meanwhile, the Spartans kept driving and Henson kept scoring on runs of 4 and 6 yards. Musgrove got the last one on a 5-yard jet sweep after Jed Lynch’s interception return to the 7.

“We kind of came together in the locker room and knew that we needed to keep pushing,” Henson said. “This was kind of like a playoff game and there was a lot of energy, a lot of people here. It’s a big game and I think we all just kind of rose to the occasion.”

Bellbrook opened with a well-played victory over Tippecanoe but lost a close game to Miamisburg last week.

“We’ve got to kind of go back to square one because there’s certainly some things that we need to do better,” Bellbrook coach Jeff Jenkins said. “We need to do better from a practice standpoint, from a preparation standpoint. Yeah, we’ve played three really good teams, but we expect to win football games. We don’t go into any game expecting to lose. So, it’s definitely a gut check for us.”