ASHLAND – It’s a compelling question many have long asked: What do a giant inflated chicken and an oversized hot dog with mustard have in common?
At long last, the answer has been revealed: Both are Ohio Cardinal Conference champions in girls soccer.
At least that was the case Tuesday night, when the Ashland High School squad showed up at Community Stadium for its annual Halloween costume practice. Head coach Lee Hunt said it has become a tradition before the team’s first postseason game.
Freshman Camryn Wires was the chicken – fiercely (and hilariously) sprinting around the turf to get warmed up before Tuesday’s workout, her suit wildly thumping with each step.
Senior Haylee Bond was the hot dog, and the rest of the team mixed in a variety of wacky looks – Pikachu, the Lorax, Alvin and the Chipmunks and a herd of cows among them.
That night may have been all laughs, but the Arrows have been all business this fall on the soccer field.
For the first time since 2019, Ashland took home the outright OCC title. The squad did it in a league that featured five of its eight teams with winning records in conference play, and half of them had at least eight wins overall.
“The OCC is tough, and there are no secrets,” said Hunt, a 1997 AHS graduate who was named OCC Coach of the Year this week in his sixth season leading the program. “The last few years and this year, there’s no difference. … Those girls (from the different OCC teams) play with each other in the spring even; they’re friends in the spring, they’re competitors in the fall.
“This is a very balanced team,” he said. “The balance between youth and experience, the balance between left and right, the balance from front to back.”
The Arrows (10-5-1, 6-1-0 OCC) will also head into Monday’s Division II district semifinal game at Springfield against Oregon Clay (9-5-2) featuring their first winning record overall since 2021.
Ashland’s talented, 10-girl senior class has steered the success and the team has received goals from 19 different players (six have tallied at least 11 points).
Hunt said it wasn’t necessarily a breakthrough in the OCC; his Arrows are 27-8-4 in league action since he took over in 2020 and they shared the crown three ways in 2021.
But he said this group’s wide-ranging talent has been fun to watch develop and added that the belief the team has in each other has also been unique.
“The trust that the upper class has with our younger players is there,” Hunt said. “Then all five senior starters have at least three years of varsity experience.
“It seems like we’ve found a really good combination of where each player plays that best helps the team.”
The Arrows’ pre-season goals included securing a winning record, capturing the OCC and totaling double-digit wins. All of those things came together.
“We just have more experience and more chemistry,” said senior midfielder Maddie Beattie, dressed up Tuesday as Theodore from Alvin and the Chipmunks. “I’ve played with the nine other seniors for four years now, so we know how we all play.
“We all just push each other; we want everyone to be better on this team.”
Beattie leads the Arrows with eight assists this fall and is one of five seniors who Hunt said will play soccer in college – the most he’s ever had from one class in 14 years as a varsity head coach.
The trio of Beattie (two-time All-OCC), midfielder Amelia Hunt (six goals, four assists, three-time All-OCC) and defender McKenzie Cool all committed to play at NAIA Mount Vernon Nazarene University within a week of each other.
Coach Hunt said defenders Bond (eight goals; OCC Defensive Player of the Year) and Adi Helbert (six goals, three-time All-OCC) also will be playing at the next level, but have yet to commit anywhere.
Amelia Hunt, the coach’s daughter — dressed in all orange Tuesday as the Lorax — said this year’s Arrows have been a unified unit from the get-go.
“We all work well together and we all know each others’ positions,” said Hunt, a four-year varsity letter winner with 14 goals and 20 assists for her career. “There’s a very good bond.
“(As seniors) we wanted to keep everyone involved and be sure everyone had an equal opportunity.”
Helbert has accumulated 50 points in her AHS career (22 goals, six assists) and Ashland has gotten a huge offensive bump this year from junior All-OCC forward Oaklynn Burns (team-high nine goals), who was limited due to injury as a sophomore last fall.
“With Oaklynn being healthy this year,” coach Hunt said, “she’s tremendous with what she does.”
Underclassmen have been critical for AHS as well.
Sophomore midfielder Rowyn Garn and freshman forward Campbell O’Brien both were named All-OCC. Sophomore forward Mia Gonzales also has four goals and three assists, and Wires (three goals) even buried a pair of penalty kicks as a freshman this season.
Meanwhile, sophomore goalie Morena McFadden has been stellar during her first fall in the net, collecting 59 saves and eight shutouts during an All-OCC season.
That effort followed the graduation of 2024 OCC Defensive Player of the Year Sadie Mills, who accumulated more than 200 saves in her final two years with the Arrows.
“(McFadden) did great this year,” coach Hunt said. “(Mills) was a three-year varsity goalkeeper and we came in this year with three goalkeepers and it was a competition to start with.”
McFadden was hugely influential in Ashland’s most impressive stretch this season.
After starting the year with a pair of losses, the Arrows hammered out a six-game winning streak – their longest in six years – during which they outscored their opponents 36-0.
Included in that run was a 1-0 road win over perennial power Chippewa, ranked No. 8 in Division V with a 16-1-0 record and outscoring its opponents 108-3 this fall.
Ashland handed the Chipps their lone regular-season loss last year as well, before the team advanced all the way to the Division V state championship game.
But the most memorable night of this season came Oct. 2.
While the Arrows were constructing a 4-0 road win over Mansfield Senior that night, they were simultaneously watching a livestream of the Madison at Lexington game.
Lady Lex had handed AHS its lone league loss this season (4-0), so Ashland needed them to finish with anything but a win against the Rams.
The contest ended in a 1-1 tie, granting the Arrows a slim, outright OCC title over Lexington (10-4-3, 5-0-2) due to the league’s point system (three points for each win, one point for each tie).
Hunt had to laugh while describing the scene.
“I’m trying to coach (the Ashland-Mansfield) game, the girls are trying to play that game,” he said, “but then the girls on the sidelines are trying to watch our game and the (Lex-Madison) game that’s being livestreamed.”
“Some of us found out (about the OCC title) when we were on the field,” Beattie said. “We all just started getting hype and Mansfield was probably so confused because our game was still going on and we were all celebrating.”
The Arrows hope to have some more good memories ahead next week.
With a victory Monday against Clay, they would advance to play in a Division II district title game next Thursday – likely against top-seeded, No. 2-ranked Anthony Wayne (13-0-3).
After making the district finals last year as a Division III team – Hunt’s third district final appearance leading AHS – the Arrows are the smallest Division II team in Ohio this season.
“We know we have the talent and we have the connection,” Beattie said, “so we need to go into the tournament not being scared, even though we’re the smaller school.”
Hunt, who has a 139-97-22 career varsity record in 14 combined seasons leading Ashland (52-44-13) and Crestview (87-43-9), will continue to have the Arrows practicing at night on the Community Stadium turf in the lead-up to Monday.
He said it will help his players get into a routine while also getting used to the playing surface and weather they will see Monday.
Hunt also said his hopes are high for the Arrows, who have set up what could be another huge season next year with a 10-0-5 junior varsity this fall.
“Because of this group, those players that are going to come in next year to replace this senior class know what it takes to win,” he said.
