MANSFIELD — Keagan Armitage tormented Mansfield Senior with his arm and his legs.
Ashland’s senior quarterback threw for 307 yards and five touchdowns and rushed for 119 yards and another score as the Arrows pulled away in the fourth quarter for a 46-20 win Friday at Arlin Field.
Ashland (6-1, 3-0) led 25-20 after three quarters but outscored Senior High (5-2, 2-1) 21-0 in the fourth. Kamrin Knowlton-Goings had a pair of TD receptions in the fourth.
“We just came in and did our job,” Knowlton-Goings said. “If they are playing man (coverage) and they have five on our five, somebody is going to get open.”
The 6-foot-5 Knowlton-Goings and 6-foot-6 Manny Langston feasted on Senior High’s undersized secondary. Langston had five catches for 188 yards, including a 77 yard TD reception in the first quarter.
“I felt going into the season our secondary was the strongest unit on our team,” Senior High coach Chioke Bradley said. “It’s just not happening like that right now.
“We’ve got some guys who have got to look themselves in the mirror and make a decision about what they are going to do.”
Turnover Margin: Going into Friday’s game, Mansfield Senior ranked among area leaders in turnover margin at plus-eight. The Tygers had 13 take-aways and just five give-aways, but turned the ball over four times against the Arrows.
“Some of the big stats you can count on in terms of winning and losing are third down efficiency and the turnover battle. We lost the turnover battle,” Bradley said. “We lost the turnover battle and they capitalized on four of them.”
Arms Race: Armitage, the area’s leading passer, completed 16 of 27 passes for 307 yards and five touchdowns. He was intercepted once.
“He does what we ask him to do. He reads things and he knows where mismatches are,” Ashland coach Scott Valentine said. “He just does a great job of executing our offense for us.”
He’s the Manns: Mansfield Senior’s Jornell Manns continued his spectacular season with three more touchdowns Friday. He scored on a 92 yard run on Senior High’s first play from scrimmage and added a 7-yarder later in the first quarter and a 1 yard run in the third. The University of Minnesota-bound senior rushed for 114 yards on nine carries and caught four passes for 25 yards and has scored a whopping 24 touchdowns in seven games.
“The first one he broke, I think that was a wake-up call for our guys,” Valentine said. “There’s some speed there, so we’ve got to keep him in front of us.”
Next: Ashland visits Lexington next week, while Mansfield Senior is at league-leading Wooster. After dropping their first three games, the Generals have won four straight and are 4-0 in the OCC.
“We’re at a crossroads,” Bradley said. “We’ve got to figure out how we’re going to respond.”
