ASHLAND – This is what it looks like when a defense grows up.
The undefeated Ashland football team will soar into its Division II regional semifinal Friday against top-seeded Big Walnut (11-1) with its confidence stacked a mile high.
One massive reason for it lies within an opportunistic, playmaking defense that has been forcing turnovers at a breakneck pace for more than half of its season.
In their last seven games, the Arrows have piled up 23 turnovers (3.3 per game). They have 10 interceptions since Week 9.
It’s part of the reason Ashland (12-0) is one of just six unbeaten teams left in Division II, and it probably has defensive coordinator Ryan Stackhouse feeling like he’s got highlight-reel plays waiting on-demand.
“It’s by far one of the most athletic defenses we’ve had,” said Stackhouse, a longtime defensive coach at AHS who also was a turnover machine at safety for the Arrows in his playing days.
“I think with the young kids we had last year, (the capability to force turnovers) just wasn’t there,” he said. “The mindset last year was, ‘Let’s not take chances.’ This year it’s been kind of the opposite, where we knew we were going to give up a few more points, but we were going to give the offense the ball a few extra times, too.”
It has definitely been give and take.
While Ashland has allowed between 27 and 29 points in four games this season, its defense has been the glue keeping this perfect season together when it’s been needed most.
The Arrows were tied late in the fourth quarter in Week 1 when a Gunner Lacey interception helped clinch a 41-27 victory at River Valley.
When they needed overtime to beat Madison in Week 6, they forced three turnovers. When Ashland was challenged in Weeks 9 and 10 in close wins over both Wooster (24-14) and Lexington (30-21), the defense forced a combined nine turnovers, getting touchdowns on interceptions from both Tyler Sauder and Michael Franz.
The clutch, field-flipping plays have become too hard to keep track of at this point.
Every Arrow on the defense has played a crucial role, but the turnover brigade is built around the quintet of linebackers Lacey (four forced fumbles, two fumble recoveries) and Gavin Hoffman (three INTs, FR), and defensive backs Sauder (four INTs, two FRs), Josh Ingani (four INTs, FR) and Killian O’Brien (three INTs, FR).
Those five have combined for 15 of Ashland’s 17 interceptions and half of the team’s 12 fumble recoveries.
All of them were recently chosen Ohio Cardinal Conference first-teamers.
“Taking that jump from a lot of guys being one-year starters to two-year starters has really limited the number of things we’re messing up mentally,” said Sauder, a senior who has 10 interceptions and 306 tackles in his career and was selected OCC Defensive Player of the Year.
“When you’re not beating yourselves, you give your opponents a chance to beat themselves.”
“Team chemistry plays a big part in it,” added Hoffman, who boasts a team-high nine sacks. “We had nine returning starters this year on defense, which was a big impact.
“All of us have been playing together our whole lives, so we just have to trust each other.”
The trust apparently has been there most of this historic fall.
While standout Nathan Bernhard put together the best junior season of any quarterback in AHS history (45 TDs and total 3,701 yards), Ashland’s defense has checked plenty of its own boxes.
Only three times in the last 20 seasons has the AHS defense allowed fewer than its current 16.4 points per game. The team’s 40 combined sacks are twice as many as any other season since 2020.
Lacey joins Hoffman as a catalyst in that department. The junior middle linebacker has eight sacks in addition to his runaway, team-high of 28 tackles-for-loss.
Had it not been for a Mansfield Senior field goal in Week 7, this year’s Arrows would be the first AHS team with three shutouts in a season since the 1987 team that made Ashland’s first-ever playoff appearance.
Stackhouse said defensive linemen Cooper Smith, Joey Isenhart and Brandon Briggs have helped free up opportunities for the second-level guys to do damage.
“Our D-line has been so good at taking double-teams, it allows certain gaps to open up for me to fill and make the play on it,” Lacey said.
“It’s not a rewarding job up front and you don’t get your name in the paper a lot,” added Sauder, “but those guys are really what makes our defense go.”
Both Sauder (6-0, 175 pounds) and Lacey (5-11, 190) have been getting looks from a variety of college programs to play at the next level. Stackhouse said both are generals on the field.
“Sauder is the toughest kid on the football field,” Stackhouse said. “He’s not the biggest, not the fastest, but he’s the toughest … It doesn’t matter whether there’s a guard pulling or a fullback coming through the line, he’s willing to hit anybody and everything.”
The speedster was part of Ashland’s regional-champion 4×400-meter relay team on the track in the spring alongside football teammates Hoffman and Jayden Goings (another defensive back with 45 tackles and an interception).
Sauder also had four interceptions as an OCC first-team pick last fall.
Lacey, meanwhile, has been the beating heart of one of the most ruthless run-stopping defenses Ashland has ever had. He has a team-high 132 tackles after a sophomore season that saw him lead the squad with 112 tackles – putting Lacey on pace to set the program’s career tackles record as a senior.
In 12 games this season, Lacey and the Arrows have allowed just 1,073 yards and 11 touchdowns rushing. Take away the overtime game at Madison and AHS has given up only 882 yards (80.2 yards per game) and seven TDs on the ground.
“Gunner’s got a sense to him where he just understands the flow of the game and is one of the quickest guard-reads and one of the best linebackers I’ve coached,” Stackhouse said. “A lot of times, I want him to fill behind the pulling (offensive) lineman or the H-back, but he’ll get there before the lineman gets there.
“He’s reading it so fast that he’s beating the other team to the play.”
If there’s an area the Arrows would like to see lower numbers, it would be in passing yards allowed (2,564).
But a lot of that has come from either their big-play defense selling out for yet another interception or from simply playing more off the ball when opposing teams have been forced to go to the air late in games.
The Arrows know they can trust Bernhard and the offense to put up points if they need them.
“Overall, we’re an aggressive team,” Hoffman said. “You’re going to get that hero-to-zero moment here and there, but I think we come out with that hero moment a lot more than the zero.
“(Other teams) might be more athletic and bigger than us, but we’re just a very sound team,” he said. “We’ve got good technique, we do things right and we’re well-coached … We’re just going to smack you in the mouth and beat you. That’s how it goes.”
Stackhouse said he’d be surprised if Hoffman has missed more than five tackles all season. He noted the senior is one of Ashland’s best edge rushers while also being its best in the flat and in coverage.
The coach added that Ingani has turned in one of the lowest completion ratings allowed by an AHS defensive back.
The senior said he just wanted to finish his football career with a bang this year.
“We just had a lot of guys returning, so I feel like we’re more comfortable in the defense and the game has slowed down for us,” said Ingani, whose second-half interception last week against St. Francis DeSales helped lock up a 27-14 victory. “We can read offenses more and make more plays on the ball.”
Then there is the 6-foot, 170-pound O’Brien, a sure-handed speedster who has turned in one of the most electric sophomore seasons in Ashland football history.
While he didn’t see a ton of time on the defensive side of the ball early in the season, O’Brien still has forced four turnovers, including a pick-6 and a key second-half interception last week against DeSales.
Add to that his explosiveness on offense as a receiver (29 catches, 683 yards and a team-high eight receiving TDs) and O’Brien became a rare sophomore to earn first-team All-OCC status.
In two recent seasons, there wasn’t a sophomore from any OCC school who made that first-team list.
“I knew I was ready for it,” O’Brien said. “… I expected to start slower and work my way up, but it’s great that (all-conference honors) came this early. I worked for it.”
At this point, though, anything other than this week’s showdown with Big Walnut is just noise.
The Arrows are playing in Week 13 for only the fifth time in program history. A win Friday at Marion Harding would not only send them into Division II’s Elite Eight, but would set the school record for single-season victories.
“Going into the playoffs we knew we were going to get the best of the best,” Lacey said. “Defense is what sets the tone for the big games and it’s what really motivates the offense to go down and score, too.”
“We’ll be the underdogs the rest of the way,” Hoffman said, “so we’ve just got to keep proving everybody wrong.”