ASHLAND – The Ashland High School football team has spent the last two seasons setting its record books on fire.
The Arrows posted a combined 22-3 record in 2024 and 2025, collecting a 19-game regular-season winning streak along the way (second-longest in AHS history).
All that success carries over into this year – the 120th edition of Ashland football – as these Arrows will look to extend their home winning streak to 16 games while trying to hunt down another Ohio Cardinal Conference title in the process.
On Sunday during its annual Dr. Bill Ihrig Memorial Football Sponsor Program Kickoff Banquet, hosted by the Ashland Eagles Aerie #2178, Ashland looked ahead to its opener on Friday night at Bay Village.
The event featured dinner and was highlighted by guest speaker Lee Owens. It is part of a mentorship program pairing members of the Ashland community with players on the team.
Despite the graduation of some of the best players in the history of the program – including record-setting performers Nathan Bernhard (quarterback), Gunner Lacey (linebacker) and Gabe Baith (wide receiver) – the Arrows have plenty of optimism.
They will step into Week 1 with returning All-Ohio Cardinal Conference performers Killian O’Brien (WR), Greyson Blough (lineman), Jeff Hickey (DB) and Grayson Baith (RB) – all seniors who were voted captains by their teammates this season.
Dual-threat junior Liam Hubacher will open the year as the squad’s starter at quarterback.
“As we step into this year, we are going to be young when it comes to varsity, Friday night playing experience,” said head coach Scott Valentine, entering his 21st season leading the Arrows and just five wins from 200 for his career.
“We’re excited,” he said, “but we’ve got a lot of work to do this week to get ready for that opening kickoff.”
Ashland City Schools Supt. Steve Paramore was master of ceremonies for the night, while the event’s co-committee chair, Joe Reep, also offered remarks during the evening.
Paramore was excited to introduce Owens, who led the Ashland University football program from 2004 through 2022 during a Hall of Fame career that also included NCAA Division I college coaching stops at the University of Akron and Ohio State University.
“Leadership is about impacting your people,” Paramore said, “and there has not been a moment in Lee Owens’ career where he hasn’t positively impacted the people around him.”
Owens centered much of his address to the Arrows around some of the topics in his book, “The Spirit of a Team,” which was written alongside Ashland Source managing editor Larry Phillips and published about a year ago.
The former head coach discussed how to establish a foundation of team building, the process of team building and the pursuit of team excellence.
“There is a difference between winning championships and reaching excellence,” Owens said. “Excellence is also about the way you win, it’s about why you win – the reasons that you fight for it.
“You want to be a part of a team that makes a difference, that has a purpose and has significance.”
Owens spoke about his time leading the program at Akron, where after four losing seasons to begin his college head coaching career, he and the Zips broke through for a 7-4 campaign in 1999, then a 6-5 season in 2000.
The latter campaign saw Akron win a share of its first-ever Mid-American Conference East Division championship.
“The last thing we had to do was just make a decision as a team that we were gonna win and that we were gonna stop making excuses,” he said.
Owens also made four high school head coaching stops, guiding Crestview to a perfect season before winning a state championship in 1985 at Galion, then spending the 1988 through 1991 seasons leading the storied program at Massillon Washington.
He said his greatest legacy was through Carl Johnson, the state-winning quarterback of that 1985 Galion team.
Johnson had a rough upbringing and was struggling with his living circumstances while in high school. Although many coaches at Galion told Owens not to risk having the quarterback on his roster, he knew there was a great person and player there.
“There was something about him that I knew was special,” Owens said. “There was a rough edge and there were things we had to fight through, but I believed in him, our staff believed in him and eventually our team believed in him when no one else did.”
Ironically, Galion won its opening game of that unforgettable 1985 season against Ashland, 14-7, overcoming a 7-6 deficit with a scoring drive engineered by Johnson inside the final two minutes of the game.
Today, Johnson is the head of operations for Warren Equity Partners.
Owens also spent nearly two decades setting new standards at Ashland University, where he finished with a 137-61 overall record and guided the Eagles to six Division II playoff appearances and four conference titles.
Plenty of Ashland Arrows became standouts for the coach at AU and his message to this year’s squad Sunday was to commit to success in all facets.
“You have to decide to win,” Owens said. “Forget that you’re young, forget that you lost your quarterback (to graduation). Just decide to win and find a way to get it done.”
Ashland opens its season with road games at Bay and Marion Harding before returning home Sept. 4 against Clyde.
The Arrows will look to extend an eight-game regular-season win streak against non-conference teams before beginning Ohio Cardinal Conference play Sept. 11 at home against New Philadelphia.
Among other highlights at Sunday’s kickoff banquet were:
– The announcement of this season’s coaching staff: defensive coaches Ryan Stackhouse, Jim Deppen, A.J. Beer, Scott Sauder, Trevor Downing and Chris Schmidt, and offensive coaches Carl White (now in his 50th year of coaching), Owen Reef, Nich Bernhard, Brian Hennis, Austin Yeater, Stiles O’Brien, Cordell Wyatt and Nate Kyser.
– Reep, reporting for AHS athletic director Jason Goings, said Ashland has 310 student-athletes participating in fall sports this year. Eighty of them will play football, while additional teams include cheerleading (34), boys cross country (31), girls cross country (18), boys soccer (43), girls soccer (36), girls tennis (21), volleyball (23), boys golf (19) and girls golf (7).
– Reep co-chaired Sunday’s event with Cory Haldeman and also is the president of the Ashland All-Sports Booster Club. He said that group already has allocated $29,119 for the 2026-27 school year back into the high school and middle school athletic programs and has more fundraising events to come.
– Ashland’s “Meet the Team” night for the community will be 8 p.m. Wednesday at Community Stadium.
– For the first time, passes to all Ashland Arrows sporting events for the 2026-27 school year will be offered through the athletic office.
A pass for one person will cost $150, while a pass for a family of up to four will be $300.
