Collaboration
Statistical information from the game in this article was provided by Kris Mowry, Tony Van Duyne and Brandon Wells with the Ashland Arrows Broadcasting Network hosted by YouTube.
NEW PHILADELPHIA – Second-half defensive dominance has become the Ashland football team’s calling card in 2025.
For the third time in four games, the Arrows put up a shutout after halftime Friday night at New Philadelphia’s Woody Hayes Quaker Stadium, turning a 13-7 lead at intermission into a 34-7 blowout win.
“Traditionally, over the years, our coaching staff does a great job of making adjustments on the sidelines and at halftime,” said Ashland head coach Scott Valentine, whose squad forced four turnovers to help open its Ohio Cardinal Conference schedule with a victory.
“It’s all about if the kids can go out and execute (in the second half), and they’ve been doing that.”
Lineman Budda Martin and linebacker Gunner Lacey both forced fumbles in the game – one of them recovered in the AHS end zone by Gabe Baith – and both Baith and Tanner Wolfe collected interceptions.
Ajay Workman had the other fumble recovery for an Ashland defense that has been led by Lacey, a returning first-team All-Ohioan (team-high 25 tackles entering the game, 342 for his career).
The Quakers (1-3, 1-1 OCC) were in front 7-6 following an 8-yard touchdown run by Kolston Fox in the first quarter, but they couldn’t manage another point the rest of the way.
“As we were going into the second quarter, (defensive coordinator Ryan Stackhouse) said we had 11 mental mistakes on the first two series,” Valentine said. “When you have that many starting out, it’s not good.
“It’s happened the last two weeks, so we’ve gotta figure out why we’re starting slow mentally early. Once we got that taken care of, we played good defense.”
New Philadelphia had beaten AHS 28-0 on the same turf in 2023, and the Quakers entered this season having made the playoffs in 13 of the last 14 years.
They feature a speedy All-Ohio receiver in CJ Carlisle and had another big playmaker in TR Harriman, who entered Friday night with seven catches for 160 yards and three scores.
But that duo finished with just two catches for 56 yards against the Arrows and first-year quarterback Parker Rieger ended his night just 10-of-15 for 133 yards with two interceptions.
Baith set up his own 5-yard touchdown reception from Ashland quarterback Nathan Bernhard with an interception of Rieger early in the third.
For his part, Bernhard did much of his damage on the ground, totaling 121 yards and a pair of touchdowns on 19 carries.
New Philadelphia entered the night having allowed just one receiving score all season. But while the Quakers held Bernhard to a 9-for-18 game through the air for just 69 yards, the senior still managed to find Baith and his brother, Grayson Baith (46 yards, TD rushing), for short scoring passes.
The Appalachian State commit surpassed former Arrows standout QB Taylor Housewright in career yards on offense (now over 8,300) and has tied him in career touchdowns (91).
Those totals both move Bernhard into second place all-time at Ashland behind only 2011 graduate Marcus Fuller.
Valentine said his senior QB – who now has gone 10 straight games without an interception – played another great game.
The Arrows have scored at least 34 points in their first four games of a season for the first time since 2003.
The victory also granted Ashland the second-longest regular-season winning streak in program history (now at 14). The only one longer stretched for 21 games from late in the 1950 season through the end of the 1952 campaign.
“We did lose a really good group of seniors (to graduation), so this group of seniors and the underclassmen have come together and decided they wanted to keep moving forward,” Valentine said. “… We’ve got to keep getting better, but I’m excited for them because they’ve put in the work to be here right now.”
The Arrows head back home for Week 5 when they will host Dover (1-3), which dropped a 40-34, double-overtime decision Friday night to Columbus Academy.
The Crimson Tornadoes will join the OCC for football in 2026, but this year’s matchup is a renewal of what has been a solid rivalry through the decades. Dover carries a 23-12 record in head-to-head matchups, with many of those coming when the teams played in the former Cardinal Conference.
