Collaboration
Statistical information from the game in this article was provided by Kris Mowry, Brandon Wells and Tony Van Duyne with the Ashland Arrows Broadcasting Network hosted by YouTube.
ASHLAND – A week after holding off New Philadelphia in a down-to-the-wire, 17-14 doozy, the Ashland football team removed most of the doubt early Friday night against Maple Heights.
The Arrows rode plenty of big plays and cruised to a 21-0 halftime lead at Community Stadium. They were in control by a 31-6 count heading into the fourth quarter of an eventual 37-20 victory over the Mustangs (3-2) on Homecoming Night.
It was a second consecutive statement win for Ashland, which improved to 5-0 for just the second time since winning the Division II state poll with a 10-0 regular season in 2006.
The noise around this year’s Arrows is going to get louder now. They entered Friday night receiving votes in the Division II state poll and left the field one of just two undefeated teams in their 24-team region (Walnut Ridge is the only other).
“You can’t listen to the outside noise,” Ashland head coach Scott Valentine said. “With the rest of our league schedule, we’re going to get everybody’s best. We better be ready to play every week.
“Even though this was nonleague, this was a big game for us.”
Maple Heights came to town with all three of its wins this season coming by double-digits. But Ashland’s Killian O’Brien returned an interception of quarterback Luke Anzlovar early in the first quarter 56 yards for the game’s first points, and AHS was off and running.
“It started with the (pick-six from O’Brien), so that helped us,” Valentine said. “We had to get off to a good start.”
Arrows quarterback Nathan Bernhard was a dual-threat dynamo once again.
With a variety of massive, yard-eating plays – including lengthy receptions from Gabe Baith (3 catches, 83 yards), O’Brien (1-55), Dakota Kruty (1-50) and Grayson Baith (1-41) – Bernhard finished 9-of-20 for 260 yards passing.
Senior Tyler Sauder had Ashland’s lone receiving touchdown on a night when Bernhard eclipsed 4,000 passing yards for his career.
On the ground, the junior quarterback was just as potent, collecting 94 yards and three touchdowns on 19 carries. Those numbers put him over 500 career rushing yards, too.
“(The Mustangs) were playing man-to-man, so their backs were turned downfield,” Valentine said of Bernhard’s rushing efforts. “He scrambled a couple times and I think he found out that nobody was there because they were all running with receivers.
“That’s got to be part of what we do with him, just because of how people defend against his arm.”
Through five games this season, Bernhard has accounted for 18 touchdowns and roughly 1,400 yards of total offense.
Meanwhile, the Ashland defense was locked in from the start yet again.
The Arrows entered Friday having allowed just 7.8 points per game in their last six home games. Maple Heights got a lot of its numbers in the fourth quarter after the game was out of hand.
O’Brien’s interception was his second of the season and AHS got backfield stops from Gunner Lacey, Cooper Smith, Gavin Hoffman and Joey Isenhart.
Anzlovar ended up with 396 yards and three touchdowns on 32-of-49 passing, with most of that going to Kindall Brown (9-154-1 receiving) and Mike Banks (8-122-1).
But the Mustangs were held to just 15 yards on the ground.
“Defensively, I thought we really contained their big-play capability,” Valentine said. “They got some there (in the fourth quarter), but overall we did a good job of containing them.”
Carson O’Brien had another productive night with his leg. The Ashland junior kicker had multiple PAT kicks and connected on a third-quarter field goal.
The Arrows are back on the road for the first time since Week 2 next Friday when they return to Ohio Cardinal Conference action at Madison (1-4, 1-1 OCC). The Rams dropped a 23-21 outcome to West Holmes (3-2, 2-0) on Friday.
“The kids have bought into the stuff we were doing and they’ve concentrated,” Valentine said. “This week was a big distraction week because we had the (Ashland County Fair), we had Homecoming. We had all that stuff going on and usually that’s not all in the same week.
“We just need to make sure we need to keep moving forward.”