Ashland beats Lexington to keep OCC title hopes alive

LEXINGTON — From 0-4 to perhaps a share of the Ohio Cardinal Conference football title. Ashland has lived a lifetime in the first eight weeks of the season.

The Arrows, outscored 139-63 to open the year in a brutal non-league schedule against four teams with a combined 22-10 record, shot past Lexington, 35-10, on Friday night and now can earn a share of the OCC title with wins in their last two games.

That’s because Ashland (3-5, 3-1) kept the faith, winning three of its last four games, according to first-year coach Sean Seder.

“That’s one of the things we said. It’s tough to really buy in and believe it, but the kids have done a great job. We said we just need to take care of business every week.

“Coming into tonight, there were three weeks left and there is a chance (Mansfield) Senior High could slip up. Lo and behold, it happened tonight,” Seder said.

Mansfield Senior (7-1, 3-1) lost its first game of the season at Wooster (5-3, 5-0) on Friday, 18-17, earning the Generals at least a share of the OCC title.

The upset also turned the league title chase on its head.

The Arrows, Tygers and Mount Vernon are all 3-1 in the league. Ashland has league games at home in the final two weeks, taking on West Holmes (3-5, 1-3) before hosting Wooster. The Generals have a non-league game at home against winless Akron Firestone.

Mansfield Senior plays at Mount Vernon (5-3, 3-1) in week nine and then hosts winless Madison (0-8, 0-4). 

“Now everything is back in play as far as the conference,” Seder said. “We kind of control our own destiny again. We gotta go take care of some football.

“I can’t say how proud I am of the boys. To go 0-4 and now to be where we are … they could have easily folded up shop. They didn’t. They bought in and now they are all in,” Seder said.

Lexington slipped to 2-6, 1-4 with Friday’s loss.

TOO MUCH MITCH: Ashland quarterback Mitch Heilman keyed the win against the Minutemen, passing for three TDs and rushing for two.

The 6-0, 175-pound senior completed 30 of 44 passes for 286 yards, including a 13-yard TD pass to Eli White as time expired in the first half to give the Arrows a 14-10 lead. He also rushed for 56 yards on 11 carries.

“Mitch did a heckuva job extending the play (at the end of the half), which he has done all year. We have a scramble drill and the receivers know where they’re supposed to go and Mitch found him,” Seder said.

Lexington chose to send three rushers most of the night, trying to keep Heilman in the pocket.

“The game plan was to get our athletes on their athletes. We wanted to keep the quarterback in front of us. We saw on film that when you pressure him, and he was able to get out, he could really hurt you,” Lexington coach Tim Scheid said.

“We wanted to have our linebackers and even our safeties spy on him to try to come up to stop him. We knew he had dangerous legs and we didn’t want to force him to run the ball,” Scheid said.

Heilman’s scoring runs came on carries of 8 yards and 11 yards. His other TD passes were to 5 yards to Parker Henkel and 19 yards to Cade McQuate, the last coming with one minute left to conclude the scoring.

FAST START: Lexington started quickly, taking the opening kick off and driving quickly down the field, scoring on a 25-yard pass from sophomore QB Cole Pauley to senior Alex Green.

That TD, and a 26-yard field goal by freshman A.J. Young midway through the second quarter, had the Minutemen on top, 10-7.

But Ashland’s defense clamped down. The Minutemen finished with 239 yards of offense, including 57 yards rushing on 30 tries. Pauley completed 14 of 30 passes for 182 yards.

“The defense played a great game,” Seder said. “We have shown flashes of it, and have played a really good half here and there. They played a complete game tonight. To be honest, they’re the reason we were in it and were able to win this game.”

Scheid said his offense lost its rhythm after the opening drive.

“We just weren’t connecting on the play calling. We were mixing the run and the pass and we (then) went a little heavy with the run. That kinda threw (Pauley’s) rhythm off a little bit. We tried to go back to him and he was just off. He wasn’t the same in the second half as he was in the first,” Scheid said.

STATISTCALLY SPEAKING: Senior Mason Kranz led Ashland with 67 yards on 10 carries as the Arrows rushed for 154 yards on 35 attempts. Junior Jayden Jones had 87 yards on six receptions while Henkel had 81 on six catches. McQuate finished with 49 yards on five receptions.

Senior Keith Thomas led Lexington with 42 yards on 11 carries. Senior Kaydan Berry had 34 yards on nine attempts. Senior Dylan Christman had five catches for 58 yards. Green had 67 yards on four receptions.

Lexington is at Madison next Friday.