TIFFIN — It took less than a minute Friday night for Ashland to find out that the Tiffin Columbian offense was as good as advertised in their Division III, Region 10 first-round playoff matchup.
Tornadoes running back Damien Brockington ripped off a 69-yard touchdown run 33 seconds into the game and Columbian proved to be an offensive buzzsaw in a 49-21 final at Frost-Kalnow Stadium.
The third-seeded Tornadoes (9-2) came in averaging 40 points per game and they nearly had that total by halftime, building a 35-0 lead by intermission. That total was more points than 14th-seeded Ashland (5-6) had given up in a full game all season and Brockington — the leading rusher in the Sandusky Bay Conference — finished the game with 192 yards and touchdown runs of 69, 3, 48 and 29 yards.
He has 30 rushing touchdowns for the season.
“Their offensive front was pretty good and kind of controlled our guys, and that gave (Brockington) some running lanes,” Ashland coach Scott Valentine said. “He’s a good runner and made us miss.
“We talked about how their skill guys were really good and were experienced, and they proved that.”
Ashland fought back with a pair of third-quarter touchdowns, one on a 4-yard run from quarterback Nathan Bernhard and another on an 85-yard kickoff return from Tyler Sauder. That play represented the first AHS touchdown all season from either the defense or special teams, but it only made the score 42-14 midway through the third quarter.
Both teams had one touchdown in the fourth, with Bernhard reaching paydirt from 13 yards out with 4:49 left to cap the scoring.
“Our kids came out in the second half and we went down and scored right away, then got a kickoff return,” Valentine said. “They didn’t give up, so that’s a good thing.
“Sometimes you learn from positive results and sometimes you get negative results and you’ve got to learn from those, too.”
Columbian quarterback Brayden Roggow, a University of Akron commit, threw for a pair of first-half touchdown passes — one for 20 yards and the other for 16.
It marks the fourth time in the last five seasons the Tornadoes have won at least nine games, a stretch of success that has been highlighted by a run to the state semifinals in 2020.
Columbian moves on to play sixth-seeded Ontario (10-1), a 31-22 winner Friday over Lutheran West.
Ashland, meanwhile, will look to build off a season that saw a lot of progression for a team that returned very few starters from last year’s 6-5 team.
This season marked the 12th time the Arrows have made the playoffs since their 100th season in 2006.
“We didn’t have a lot of varsity experience coming back and we had a small senior group,” Valentine said, “so a lot of them got good varsity experience this year.”
Senior Cayden Spotts rushed for nearly 1,000 yards and joined Sauder, a junior with roughly 100 tackles and four interceptions, on the Ohio Cardinal Conference first-team.
Sophomore linebacker Gunner Lacey was an OCC second-team pick as Ashland’s leading tackler, and classmate Bernhard also was a second-teamer while throwing for more than 1,700 yards and 13 touchdowns in his first full season as the Arrows’ starting quarterback.
Bernhard will begin his junior season with more than 3,000 yards and 21 passing touchdowns for his career. He has NCAA Division I offers from Penn State, Iowa State, Louisville, Duke and Michigan State.
Ashland senior Josh Pancake (linebacker) and juniors Joey Isenhart (lineman) and Michael Franz (wide receiver) were honorable mention All-OCC.
