ASHLAND — The Ashland Arrows football team did not start the 2019 season the it hoped after dropping Friday night’s 34-7 season-opener to Uniontown Lake at Community Stadium.
The Blue Streaks’ junior running back Dreden Owens proved to be the determining factor the Blue Streaks as he rushed for 183 yards on 18 carries and two touchdowns.
“He had a great night,” Lake head coach Dan DeGeorge said. “He is a very strong runner and he obviously broke a lot of tackles tonight.”
The rushing game was dominant as the Blue Streaks ground out 362 yards and four touchdowns.
“The fundamentals is what it usually comes down to, so we’ll have to come back and readdress the fundamentals on tackling,” Ashland coach Sean Seder said.
The Arrows limited the Blue Streaks to only seven points in the first half. The first Lake drive began after an interception by sophomore Trevor Wierzbicki. It ended on a 6-yard touchdown run by quarterback Jacob Eckels.
The interception by Wierzbicki was the first of four that Ashland senior quarterback Mitch Heilman threw on the night.
“It’s tough to win football games when you turn the ball over,” Seder said. “I feel like a lot of our wounds were self-inflicted wounds.”
Early in the second half, the Arrows were able to reach Lake’s 2-yard line, but were unable to convert on fourth down and were shut out of the end zone.
Lake received the ball to start the second half and wasted no time marching 68 yards to take a 13-0 lead. Owens was responsible for 36 of those yards as he carried the ball on five straight plays to finish the drive in the end zone. He added a 7-yard TD bolt at the 7:42 mark of the third quarter for a commanding, 20-0 advantage.
“At halftime it was a dog fight,” DeGeorge said. “We talked about imposing our will a little bit more and we were able to come out and run the ball successfully and the defense played great for us tonight as well.”
The lone Ashland score came in the third quarter when Heilman was able to find senior wide receiver Cade McQuate on a 15-yard pass play to make it 20-7.
Lake scored twice more in the fourth quarter to put the game out of reach.
The stat sheet was lopsided with Lake combining for 503 yards compared to Ashland’s 195 total yards, 150 of those coming through the air. Lake also held the ball for 32:57 compared to Ashland’s 10:34 and ran twice as many plays as the Arrows did.
“I reminded the kids that we got nine games, all of our goals are still in front of us,” Seder said. “Is this what we wanted tonight? Absolutely not, but we still have a long season ahead of us.”
