20 years later: A game-by-game look at Ashland’s historic 2006 football run

ASHLAND — The Arrows were too impatient to ease into their 100th-anniversary season of 2006.

During its 6-0 start, only one team finished within three possessions of the Ashland football team.

The Arrows had the first game on their new home turf in Week 1 against Willard, then hosted their highly anticipated “Century Celebration Night” in Week 3 against Shelby.

Massive home wins over playoff hopefuls West Holmes and Orrville came in Weeks 6 and 7 before Ashland survived back-to-back road overtime games at Mansfield Senior and Clear Fork.

By then, the rest of Ohio was beginning to notice the squad that spent its afternoons practicing on the field just off Katherine Ave. A drubbing of Lexington in Week 10 sent the Arrows into what would be their first-ever playoff run.

Ashland played five playoff-qualifying teams that season — and that total would have been seven by today’s 12-team bracket standards, as West Holmes and Shelby (both 7-3) would have advanced.

The Whippets missed out on qualifying when they lost to Tiffin Columbian in Week 10, 7-6 — the same team the Arrows beat by a 14-9 score in that year’s second round. Ironically, West Holmes also lost 7-6 in Week 10 to miss out, falling to playoff-qualifying Clear Fork.

Those close-call finishes proved just how easily seasons can change by a single point — and Ashland proved it could catch lightning in a bottle.

“Everybody’s real excited, really looking forward to it,” first-team All-Ohio linebacker Shadron Starnes told the Ashland Times-Gazette entering the season. “Especially the seniors, because it’s our last year. Anticipation is really high.”

Most of the statistical information in the below game-by-game breakdowns was gathered from microfilm of the Ashland Times-Gazette’s coverage during the 2006 season. Individuals listed in the box scores are the leaders in each category for that game.

WEEK 1 vs. WILLARD (3-7 final record)

Arrows win, 44-6

While the much-anticipated 100^th-year celebration at home was slated for Sept. 8 against Shelby, the first game ever played on turf at Community Stadium was Aug. 25.

Prior to the game, Ashland University athletic director Bill Goldring cut the ceremonial ribbon while Ashland City Schools’ administrators looked on.

Ashland City Schools and AU split the cost of the ProGrass surface at $304,621 apiece, but the Eagles didn’t play their first game on the field until hosting Saginaw Valley State on Sept. 2.

The Arrows’ second-team All-Ohio nose tackle, Luke Rogers, said the team was itching to get into game action on the turf after mostly having to practice off of it in the lead-up to the season.

“Not a lot of places had it back then and it was kind of new,” he said. “To have the community’s support and the school’s support (with funding for it), we were real excited.

“We felt like we were big time.”

The excitement quickly turned from the stadium’s new aesthetics to the actual product on the field. Ashland posted three touchdowns of at least 82 yards, didn’t commit a turnover and nearly doubled Willard in offensive yardage (433-222).

The Arrows’ 44-6 rout gave them their largest margin of victory in a season opener in 41 years.

Senior wide receiver Brandon Harris, also a second-team All-Ohioan after the season, gave a taste of his year to come. He caught four passes for 138 yards and three touchdowns from first-team All-Ohio quarterback Taylor Housewright.

All-Ohio senior running back Dan Icenhour ripped off an 89-yard touchdown run and Shane Kipp ran one in from 88 yards away to close the scoring.

Final	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4
Willard (6)	0	0	6	0
Ashland (44)	14	17	0	13

Passing – Housewright 9-13-177-3 TD

Rushing – Icenhour 12-124-TD

Receiving – Harris 4-138-3 TD

WEEK 2 at BELLEVUE (6-4)

Arrows win, 31-14

Ashland was on the road for the first time in 2006 when it traveled an hour to Bellevue.

The only loss for the Redmen in a 5-1 start came to the Arrows, who led 24-14 early in the fourth quarter before pulling away. Harris scored a pair of second-half touchdowns for the winners – one of them a 60-yard interception return.

Icenhour chewed up plenty of clock and posted what ended up being a season-high 135 rushing yards.

A first-year football player, AHS kicker Andy Baker opened the game’s scoring with a 42-yard field goal. The senior had a stellar season from there, finishing 42-of-45 on PAT kicks and 7-of-10 on field goals.

Final	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4
Ashland (31)	3	14	7	7
Bellevue (14)	6	8	0	0

Passing – Housewright 11-15-142-2 TD

Rushing – Icenhour 21-135-TD

Receiving – Edson 3-60

WEEK 3 vs. SHELBY (7-3)

Arrows win, 17-0

Very few, if any, regular-season football games have been more anticipated than the “Century Celebration Night” at Community Stadium.

More than 250 Ashland football alums signed up to be part of the on-field festivities before the game and at halftime to celebrate a program that got its start in 1907 – dubbed the “official” first year because that was the first year the team had a scheduled season.

There had been build-up in the offseason to the game against Shelby, as the teams were meeting for the 94^th time – then the longest rivalry in AHS football history.

The Arrows had special black jerseys for the game with 100th-year logos on them, and the alums formed an “Arrow Tunnel of Pride” for the 2006 team to run through.

In front of a packed house, and with the team looking to go undefeated in non-conference play for the first time in 33 years, Rogers said it was the most unique pre-game experience he’s ever had.

“Seeing all those people down on the field (in the tunnel), it made more sense to me as an 18-year-old kid,” he said. “We were aware of it and we talked about it, but then when you see all those people who came back for it, you think, ‘Oh, I get it now.’

“We understood it, but then we felt it when we went out that night – how football can be transformative and how it was for all those alumni.”

Three days before the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11^th attacks, the teams kicked off and the Arrows were defensively dominant from the start.

By night’s end, the Whippets had managed just 84 total yards (minus-3 passing) and Ashland had its first shutout since 2003, doing so with an orange-tinted full moon as a backdrop to the contest.

Housewright hit Harris and Andrew Spicer with touchdown passes in the first half and Baker added another field goal to give the hosts a 17-0 lead at intermission.

That’s where things stayed.

Shelby won its next six games – five of them by at least 20 points.

In a true bit of irony, Ashland’s 17-0 victory matched its winning score in the program’s first official game played in 1907 against Savannah Academy. The excitement of the night wasn’t lost on fifth-year Arrows head coach Scott Valentine, himself a 1981 AHS graduate.

“Just to see all the faces from the past … seeing guys for the first time in a long time, this is what it’s all about,” he told the Times-Gazette.

Days after the game, the Ashland Arrows Football Alumni Association began selling a photo as a fundraiser that was taken by Dave Myers. It showed the Arrows huddling below the full moon from that night.

Ashland played at Shelby in 2007, suffering its only regular-season loss that year, 42-14. That defeat helped spur the Arrows into a run to their only Final Four appearance.

It was the 95^th meeting between the programs – Ashland’s second-biggest rivalry in terms of games behind only Wooster (108 games) – and the Arrows and Whippets have not met since.

Final	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4
Shelby (0)	0	0	0	0
Ashland (17)	7	10	0	0

Passing – Housewright 17-29-188-2 TD

Rushing – Icenhour 20-107

Receiving – Kerr 5-59

WEEK 4 at MADISON (5-5)

Arrows win, 22-13

After all the hullabaloo in Week 3 at home, the Arrows had to come down from the high with a road game at Madison, where they opened Ohio Cardinal Conference action.

The Rams had also shut out Shelby in Week 1, 3-0, and they made things especially interesting early. Madison led 7-0 after the first quarter and would have carried a 14-14 tie into halftime had its two-point pass not failed following a 57-yard touchdown late in the first half.

Ashland was sloppy as a team, committing 10 penalties for 105 yards in the first half, but Harris scored a touchdown for the fourth week in a row, Icenhour ran for 100 yards for the fourth week in a row and the AHS defense hunkered down yet again.

The Rams had negative yardage in the second half and finished with zero rushing yards on 20 carries. Another field goal from Baker in the fourth quarter clinched a two-possession win and the Arrows were 4-0 for the first time since 1995.

Final	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4
Ashland (22)	0	14	5	3
Madison (13)	7	6	0	0

Passing – Housewright 15-28-244-TD

Rushing – Icenhour 21-100

Receiving – Kerr 5-72

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WEEK 5 at WOOSTER (3-7)

Arrows win, 30-7

For the first time that season, Ashland had to play back-to-back games on the road, and Week 5 came at Wooster.

The Generals had won OCC titles in the first two years of the league’s existence (2003 and 2004), but they didn’t have the offense to run with the 2006 Arrows.

For the first time, Housewright ran and passed for better than 100 yards in a game, connecting with Harris for two more touchdowns while also scampering in from 59 and 2 yards out on the ground.

Defensively, Ashland was scary yet again, limiting Wooster to negative yardage until late in the third quarter. The Generals managed just four first downs and 85 total yards for the game.

The Arrows were 5-0 for the first time in 43 years.

Final	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4
Ashland (30)	7	14	9	0
Wooster (7)	0	0	0	7

Passing – Housewright 11-17-137-2 TD

Rushing – Housewright 9-102-2 TD

Receiving – Harris 5-58-2 TD

WEEK 6 vs. WEST HOLMES (7-3)

Arrows win, 28-0

With the second half of the season came the year’s first clear showdown for Ashland.

That week, the Arrows entered the Associated Press Division II state poll ranked No. 10. The Knights – also 5-0 – were No. 10 in Division III.

But on Homecoming Night, and with Starnes named Ashland’s “Mr. Football” before kickoff, the Arrows would not be denied.

West Holmes committed six turnovers and AHS senior Mike Lamb also recovered a blocked punt in the end zone to close out the scoring early in the third quarter.

Offensively, the Arrows did what they had to do, getting touchdowns from three different players. The defense had collected multiple shutouts in the same season for the first time since 1992.

Final	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4
West Holmes (0)	0	0	0	0
Ashland (28)	7	14	7	0

Passing – Housewright 7-11-127-TD

Rushing – Icenhour 16-85-TD

Receiving – Kerr 2-25

WEEK 7 vs. ORRVILLE (10-3)

Arrows win, 26-18

For the second week in a row, Community Stadium was the place to be for a highly anticipated matchup. It was a good thing the Arrows had the home crowd on their side.

They entered the October portion of their schedule ranked No. 6 in Division II, but they now had to deal with Orrville senior quarterback Kyle Simmons.

The eventual OCC Offensive Player of the Year, Simmons finished 2006 with more than 4,000 total yards on offense. He led the Red Riders into Ashland with a 5-1 record (3-0 OCC).

The Arrows scored the game’s first 12 points, including a splashy 30-yard touchdown reception by junior Logan Kerr. Orrville mustered just a 30-yard field goal right before halftime.

But Simmons ran in a score for the only points in the third quarter to send it to the fourth at 12-10.

Orrville’s QB ended up nearly doubling Housewright in passing yardage (251-127), but Ashland’s defense swallowed up the Red Riders’ ground game to the tune of just 44 yards on 33 carries.

The Arrows closed the evening with seven sacks – three from emergent sophomore defensive lineman Cody Fast – and Starnes cleared 100 tackles for the season.

Fourth-quarter touchdown runs from Housewright and Icenhour gave AHS a 26-10 lead before a Simmons TD pass with 2:37 to play made it the first one-possession final score of 2006 for Ashland.

Orrville didn’t lose again until its Division IV regional championship game against eventual undefeated state champion Cardinal Mooney, 50-21.

Simmons went on to a decorated career as a quarterback at Ohio Northern University, then played semi-professionally in Germany for two years.

After the win over Orrville, the Arrows had earned just their fifth 7-0 start in 100 years of football. Through seven weeks, they were allowing just 8.3 points per game.

Final	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4
Orrville (18)	0	3	7	8
Ashland (26)	6	6	0	14

Passing – Housewright 10-11-127-TD

Rushing – Housewright 15-84-TD

Receiving – Kerr 3-39-TD

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WEEK 8 at MANSFIELD SENIOR (3-7)

Arrows win, 28-27 (OT)

If Ashland thought it had faced a challenge against Orrville, the task proved to be even taller in Week 8 on the road at Mansfield Senior.

Ashland was newly minted No. 3 in Division II – the highest state ranking in program history.

But the Tygers came to play, building a 14-7 lead after the first quarter and holding a 21-14 edge late into the fourth – Ashland’s first fourth-quarter deficit of the season.

But Housewright found Harris for a 62-yard score with 4:40 left in regulation to tie it, then hit the senior for a 15-yard TD in overtime to push AHS ahead, 28-21.

The Tygers answered, but their extra-point try failed and the Arrows escaped.

Ashland had committed seven turnovers in the first seven weeks, but Mansfield forced it into four that Friday.

“I remember we kinda got a little lucky that night and every good team needs some luck,” Housewright said. “From there, it was like it was meant to be.”

Current Ashland athletic director Jason Goings was on the Mansfield coaching staff at that time and remembers well the Tygers’ clashes against the Arrows in 2006 and 2007.

The overtime win unofficially locked up Ashland’s first playoff spot since 2003.

Final	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	OT
Ashland (28)	7	7	0	7	7
Mansfield Sr. (27)	14	0	7	0	6

Passing – Housewright 14-28-241-4 TD

Rushing – Icenhour 10-53

Receiving – Harris 6-134-3 TD

WEEK 9 at CLEAR FORK (7-4)

Arrows win, 27-21 (2OT)

Fresh off its OT doozy in Mansfield a week earlier, Ashland had to work even more magic inside the Colt Corral against a foe trying to squeeze its way into at least a share of the OCC crown.

It took a Housewright-to-Nate Cooper touchdown pass with 2:49 left in the fourth to keep the Arrows’ perfect season alive into the first OT. That TD toss gave Housewright a new AHS single-season record in the category (17) and he hit Harris for another one in the first overtime.

Clear Fork, which had just 19 yards on 2-of-6 passing, leaned on its run game (44 carries, 239 yards, 3 TDs) to send it to double overtime tied at 21-21.

But after the Colts missed a 32-yard field-goal try, Housewright went in from a yard out to keep Ashland perfect.

Rogers still remembers that game as well as any that season.

“I just remember walking out with the captains for the conference with the refs to start the second overtime and saying to the other guys, ‘We’re gonna win this game. I don’t know how, I don’t know what we’re gonna do … but we’re gonna win this game, boys,’” Rogers said.

“It might be some of the most confident I’ve ever been about anything in my life; we had the guys, we had the coaches.”

Valentine said the win had him thinking the team could make a run in the playoffs.

The Arrows had locked up their first OCC title – and first league title of any kind in 12 years. They also had unofficially seized a first-round home playoff game for the first time.

Final	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	OT 1 / OT 2
Ashland (27)	7	0	0	7	7 / 6
Clear Fork (26)	7	0	7	0	7 / 0

Passing – Housewright 16-26-223-2 TD

Rushing – Icenhour 10-65-TD

Receiving – Kerr 4-66

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WEEK 10 vs. LEXINGTON (2-8)

Arrows win, 35-8

The Minutemen had endured a long season entering Week 10 and the Arrows were on the doorstep of program history. It all lined up for Ashland to have one of its most memorable regular-season finales ever at Community Stadium.

“Every year, we want to win our last game at home for our seniors and make sure they go out right,” Valentine said. “You want that last regular-season home game to be a good memory.”

Lexington was riding a six-game losing streak. It did not get easier in a steady downpour against an AHS defense that had brutalized opponents all season.

The teams combined for seven turnovers in the rain and Housewright had touchdowns on two of his four completions in the game.

On a night with a heavy emphasis on the team’s 26 seniors, Ashland senior Shane Hiller’s opening kickoff return for 92 yards was the first kickoff-return touchdown in Valentine’s coaching tenure.

Ashland’s defense permitted only 105 yards on Lexington’s 45 plays.

Valentine got a Gatorade shower and the first 10-0 season in Arrows history was clinched in a no-doubt-about-it runaway. The coach, who took the job at Ashland after a 10-0 regular season in his final year at Ontario in 2001, said it was an unforgettable night.

“Kids will say, ‘We want to be undefeated,’” Valentine said. “But the reality of being undefeated is you have to have some luck, you’ve gotta stay healthy and you’ve gotta be good, too.”

The postseason was waiting.

Final	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4
Lexington (8)	0	0	0	8
Ashland (35)	14	14	7	0

Passing – Housewright 4-9-64-2 TD

Rushing – Icenhour 21-108-TD

Receiving – McFarlin 1-25-TD

WEEK 11 vs. SYLVANIA SOUTHVIEW (7-4)

Arrows win, 47-34

If the “Century Celebration Night” against Shelby was the most anticipated home game of the season for Ashland, the Southview matchup wasn’t far behind.

On Halloween, just a few days earlier, the Arrows were awarded the Associated Press state poll title for Division II. They now got to host the Cougars in the first-ever home playoff game for Ashland.

On a frigid night with temperatures dipping into the 20s – and with 2,400 rally towels from a local business given away before the game – the teams combined for a regional quarterfinal to remember.

“For us to be able to have one here, especially after being undefeated, there was a ton of excitement around that,” Valentine said. “And I was excited for the kids because that was something that hadn’t been experienced before.”

The day before the game, then-AHS athletic director Rick Brindley said 2,800 tickets had already been sold, despite the less-than-ideal weather.

Southview featured star running back Kwesi Kankam and had a junior quarterback in Griff Whalen who ended up playing receiver at Stanford (and rooming with former Colts star quarterback Andrew Luck) before some time in the NFL.

Valentine said he and defensive coordinator Dan Fuller knew it would be a shootout of some sort, and that played out, with the teams combining for 81 points and more than 700 yards.

But Ashland got the best of the scoreboard, using a 33-6 run to break away from what had been a 14-14 tie. Kankam had nearly 140 yards and four touchdowns on offense but two of those scores came after Ashland led 47-20 in the fourth quarter.

Housewright cleared 300 yards passing for the first time, threw touchdowns to four different receivers and ran in another one, giving the Arrows their second-most points in any game since 1965.

The quarterback still remembers reading comments from Southview leading up to the game saying they would play man-to-man defense because Ashland didn’t have great speed.

“I remember thinking, ‘We’re on our turf – we’re gonna run real fast,’” Housewright said. “We torched them, and that was the first time I was like, ‘OK, we’ve got some guys who can run.’”

Kerr was one of those guys, catching four passes for 57 yards and a touchdown while also intercepting two Whalen passes in the second half.

Ashland was even missing a few starters due to injuries suffered in Week 10. Valentine said it proved his program could run with the big-city schools.

“In high school football, you’re all the same age,” he said. “One thing those kids understood was they could compete at a high level with whoever was across from them.”

One year later, the Arrows matched up with Southview again for a regional title, beating Whalen and the Cougars 21-14 on the way to their first-ever Final Four.

Final	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4
Southview (34)	7	7	6	14
Ashland (47)	7	17	13	10

Passing – Housewright 16-22-307-4 TD

Rushing – Icenhour 12-68

Receiving – McFarlin 4-68-TD

WEEK 12 vs. COLUMBIAN (10-2)

Arrows win, 14-9

If the first round against Sylvania was an offensive onslaught, the second round against Columbian was a defensive doozy.

Ashland’s regional semifinal against the Northern Ohio League champions – ranked No. 11 – was their first meeting in 40 years.

The contest was played in rain at Marion Harding. Valentine said there had been discussions of it being moved to another site because the field had been so torn up during a previous rainy game.

The Ashland faithful didn’t mind the mileage, with reportedly no empty seats in their bleachers.

“Our fans always traveled well,” Fuller said, “so there were times where we might have had more fans at an away game than the home team did that year.”

The Arrows needed all the encouragement they could get, facing their first halftime deficit of the season, 7-0, while managing just 29 yards on 18 plays before the break.

Housewright’s offense finally broke through in the fourth, with the quarterback hitting Tyler McFarlin and Anthony Fairhurst for touchdown passes to take a 14-7 lead with 7:12 to play.

Then came the AHS defense’s signature stop of the year. Late in the fourth, the Tornadoes had a first-and-goal from the Ashland 2-yard line, but the Arrows stiffened.

The team was missing multiple defensive ends to injury, so Fuller had moved backup middle linebacker Mike Lamb to the position for the first time ever during the game. On fourth down, Lamb punched the ball out of a carrier’s hands and Kerr recovered it at the AHS 4.

It was the team’s first goal-line stand all season and remains Fuller’s favorite moment from 2006.

“(Lamb’s play) is the kind of story that I think exemplified the unselfishness and the readiness (that team had),” Fuller said.

Housewright ran the ball out of the end zone after that for a safety that helped Ashland drain the clock. The Arrow defense allowed just 85 yards in the second half and both Fast and Lewis had three sacks.

Ashland was one of just 13 remaining unbeatens in Ohio out of 716 teams to start the season.

Final	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4
Columbian (9)	0	7	0	2
Ashland (14)	0	0	0	14

Passing – Housewright 14-20-137-2 TD

Rushing – Icenhour 8-65

Receiving – McFarlin 6-52-TD

WEEK 13 vs. PIQUA (13-2)

Arrows lose, 27-0

Playing the Piqua Indians for the first time ever at Tiffin’s Frost-Kalnow Stadium, the Arrows gave the Ashland area its first regional championship appearance since Loudonville was state runner-up in 1990.

Ashland’s No. 1 focus entering the night was to stop Ohio State-bound running back Brandon Saine – Ohio’s Mr. Football in 2006 – from turning the game into a highlight reel.

The Arrow defense was successful, limiting the senior to just 39 yards on 14 carries.

But almost nothing else went right.

Piqua quarterback Justin Hemm connected with Saine for a 30-yard touchdown pass in the second quarter to break up a shutout. A 15-yard scoop-and-score touchdown off a Housewright fumble followed less than four minutes later and it was 14-0 at the half.

It was Ashland’s first two-possession deficit of the season, and things didn’t improve in the second half.

With a pair of Mid-American Conference commits on their defensive line, the Indians forced five turnovers and defensive back Phillip Collier terrorized Housewright.

Collier had three interceptions – all in the second half – with one coming in the Piqua end zone and another off a tipped pass in the fourth quarter that he took back 92 yards to make it 27-0. Collier also scored on a 7-yard reception earlier in the fourth.

“Sometimes when you score, you get some momentum and it leads to (an offensive breakthrough),” Valentine said. “… If we could have gotten one score (early), that could have gotten us going. We just couldn’t get a play to help us.”

The Arrows hadn’t given up a defensive touchdown all season before their meeting with the Indians. They managed just 181 yards on 50 plays – not much less than Piqua finished with (230) during another solid night from Ashland’s defense.

A week later, Saine ran for 180 yards to lead the Indians past Turpin, 22-9, and Piqua captured its first and only state crown after that, beating Pickerington Central, 26-7.

Housewright, who set a program record with 26 touchdown passes in 2006, still hates thinking about Ashland’s final game that year.

But the season is one he’ll never forget.

“My whole athletic life, you just worked and hoped the work made you good,” Housewright said. “I guess when I look back at it, we just fell in love with the process and we didn’t know any better.”

Final	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4
Piqua (27)	0	14	0	13
Ashland (0)	0	0	0	0

Passing – Housewright 14-23-97

Rushing – Housewright 16-50

Receiving – McFarlin 5-45

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