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Norsemen open new era with 75-0 rout
- Updated: August 22, 2026
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HISTORIC ARRIVAL: Valhalla opens Carter era with 75-0 victory
By Ramon Scott
EastCountySports.com
RANCHO SAN DIEGO (8-21-26) — Perhaps county football pollsters simply wanted to see it before believing it.
Valhalla entered the season with a new coaching staff, a dramatically revamped roster and enough incoming talent to suggest that last year’s 3-8 record had little relevance to what the Norsemen could become under new head coach Jason Carter.
Friday night was hardly a definitive measuring stick. San Jacinto Valley Academy was an overmatched opponent that lost to Valhalla 51-27 last season at home.
Still, plenty of teams encounter overmatched opponents without producing a result that lands in the CIF San Diego Section record book.
Valhalla opened the Carter era by overwhelming SJVA, 75-0, producing the largest winning margin by a Grossmont Conference team in history.
The 75 points and 75-point margin established Valhalla single-game records in both categories. The Norsemen also joined a select group of San Diego Section 11-man teams to score at least 75 points in a game.
No matter the opponent, Carter’s first night on the Valhalla sideline delivered an unmistakable message: the Norsemen may have entered the season underrated.
Historic margin for the conference
Several Grossmont Conference teams have produced enormous point totals, but none have won by as many as 75.
Granite Hills scored 90 points against Grossmont in 2024 but won 90-46, a 44-point margin. Santana’s 76-point performance against La Jolla Country Day in 2018 came in a 76-55 shootout. Grossmont defeated Hilltop 75-22 in 2014, while Monte Vista beat San Diego 71-48 in the 2017 Division IV championship game.
Helix’s 71-32 victory over Monte Vista in 2002 produced a 39-point margin.
Valhalla’s performance therefore represents both the largest winning margin and the largest shutout victory by a Grossmont Conference team.
It also dramatically eclipsed the most points Valhalla had previously allowed in a game. Sweetwater defeated the Norsemen 73-0 in 2021.
That was almost a low point in the proud history of Norsemen football.
Five years later, Valhalla put its own name in the section’s 70-point record book—and this time on the winning side.
Hunter scores on every carry
Senior running back Jayden Hunter, a transfer from Mount Miguel, produced one of the most efficient scoring performances imaginable.
Hunter carried four times for 79 yards and four touchdowns, averaging 19.8 yards per attempt and reaching the end zone on every official carry.
His touchdowns included runs of 9, 5 and 35 yards. Hunter’s 5-yard score gave Valhalla a 34-0 advantage with 8:50 remaining in the first half.
SJVA then muffed the ensuing kickoff, and Hunter quickly broke away for his 35-yard touchdown. By that point, the Norsemen were scoring faster than the Wolves could recover from the previous blow.
Senior Jeremiah Loper, another transfer from Mount Miguel, added two rushing touchdowns on only two carries. One of those scores came on an 8-yard keeper during Valhalla’s early barrage.
Junior quarterback Adrian Wilson contributed a 3-yard touchdown run as the Norsemen finished with seven rushing touchdowns and 171 yards on 25 attempts.
Valhalla’s rushing statistics were not accumulated through a long night of grinding down its opponent. The damage came quickly, allowing Carter and his staff to begin rotating personnel after the outcome was effectively settled and the clock set to run non-stop.
Wilson nearly flawless
Wilson was just as efficient through the air, completing 7 of 9 passes for 216 yards and four touchdowns without an interception.
His 158.6 quarterback rating reflected a performance that was only two incompletions from perfection.
Loper also completed 2 of 4 passes for 33 yards, giving Valhalla 249 passing yards. Combined with its 171 rushing yards, the Norsemen finished with 420 yards of offense despite playing much of the game with a running clock.
Freshman AJ Wright delivered the night’s most spectacular offensive play. Wright caught a short pass, accelerated into the open field and outran the SJVA defense for an official 78-yard touchdown.
He later caught a 33-yard touchdown pass from Wilson, finishing his varsity debut with four receptions for 151 yards and two touchdowns.
Wright also made his presence felt defensively. He intercepted a pass and returned it approximately 30 yards to the SJVA 9, setting up another Valhalla touchdown.
The freshman finished with 181 all-purpose yards, two touchdown receptions and an interception in a debut that immediately established him as one of the most intriguing young players in East County.
Sophomore Camryn Conley caught three passes for 82 yards, including Wilson’s 15-yard touchdown pass that completed the scoring. Freshman Jordan Codre added two receptions for 30 yards and a touchdown.
Defense completes the rout
Valhalla’s defense did more than preserve the shutout.
The Norsemen intercepted a pass, repeatedly created favorable field position and added a touchdown when SJVA’s quarterback could not control a snap near his goal line. Valhalla recovered the loose ball in the end zone, extending the lead to 48-0 with approximately seven minutes still remaining in the first half.
The running clock was already in use before halftime, substantially shortening the game and limiting both Valhalla’s possessions and its statistical totals.
Complete defensive statistics were unavailable. The offensive figures initially posted for SJVA were clearly Valhalla plays mistakenly assigned to Wolves players who wore the corresponding uniform numbers, so those entries were excluded from the game account.
Valhalla’s 12 touchdowns can be accounted for:
- Four rushing touchdowns by Hunter.
- Two rushing touchdowns by Loper.
- One rushing touchdown by Wilson.
- Four touchdown passes by Wilson—two to Wright and one each to Codre and Conley.
- One defensive fumble-recovery touchdown.
As advertised—and perhaps ahead of schedule
Valhalla’s 2025 record understandably gave preseason pollsters reason for caution. The Norsemen went 3-8, and projections based heavily on returning results were unlikely to account fully for Carter’s arrival or the scale of the roster overhaul.
But last year’s team had already demonstrated its superiority over SJVA with a 51-27 road victory. Adding Carter’s system, several significant transfers and an impressive group of younger players created expectations inside the program that were considerably higher than its preseason placement suggested.
Friday’s result does not prove Valhalla is ready to dominate stronger opposition. One game against SJVA cannot answer every question about how the Norsemen will fare against the Grossmont Valley League or the upper half of their schedule.
It did provide a compelling first look.
Valhalla showed a quarterback who threw four touchdown passes, a running back who scored on all four of his carries, a two-way freshman capable of changing a game, multiple young receivers, a defense that produced points and enough depth to continue scoring after the primary players began leaving the field.
El Capitan entered the season as the presumed Grossmont Valley League favorite but opened with a 28-21 loss at Pearl City in Hawaii. That result, combined with Valhalla’s historic opener, immediately makes the league race more interesting than preseason projections indicated.
There will be far more meaningful tests ahead. Carter and the Norsemen understand that as well as anyone.
But if voters were waiting to see something before moving Valhalla higher, the Norsemen gave them 75 reasons to reconsider.
Valhalla has a bye in Week 2 before taking their new show on the road to face Castle Park on Sept. 4
