MARION – Squeezing his way through the line and slithering out of tackles all game long, Big Walnut’s Nolan Buirley looked like the most slippery running back on the planet Friday night.
The sophomore put together a game for the ages and, in the process, Ashland’s season of perfection slipped away.
Buirley ran for 318 yards and all four of his team’s touchdowns on 26 carries as the Golden Eagles dismissed the Arrows 28-10 in their regional semifinal at Marion Harding High School.
Ashland (12-1) got within 14-10 less than a minute into the third quarter, but the 6-foot-1, 185-pound Buirley was relentless from start to finish.
A week after putting up a career-best 291 yards and three touchdowns against Massillon Perry, the first-year varsity player brutalized an Arrow defense that largely had been a brick wall against running backs all season.
His dazzling third-quarter touchdown runs of 69 and 46 yards were crushing blows to Ashland, which never led in the game and faced its first double-digit deficit of the entire season.
“He’s a dude. He’s only a sophomore and he’s a real slippery kid,” said Ashland senior Tyler Sauder, who had one of the best games of his career on his last night of football as an Arrow.
“He was just hard to bring down tonight and we just didn’t tackle well enough to get the job done.”
Big Walnut’s performance in the trenches was a major factor, too.
(These photos were courtesy of Diane Bemiller)
“Their offensive line did a good job sticking on people and then (Buirley) found seams,” Ashland head coach Scott Valentine said. “He was strong enough to break some tackles and get away from us and we didn’t get him on the ground.”
The top-seeded, eighth-ranked Golden Eagles (12-1) advance to play Massillon Washington (11-2) next week for the Division II, Region 7 title. The third-seeded, sixth-ranked Tigers were a 48-14 victor Friday over seventh-seeded Teays Valley.
Ashland, meanwhile, ended its fall with a program-record-tying 12 wins in one of the most unforgettable seasons in AHS sports history.
But the Arrows certainly were left wondering what could have been.
One week after playing arguably its cleanest all-around game of the season in a 27-14 triumph over St. Francis DeSales, Ashland committed 12 penalties for 80 yards to stall its offense.
The Arrows’s defense had also forced 23 turnovers in their last seven games, but couldn’t manage any takeaways against Buirley and the Big Walnut offense.
Sophomore quarterback Eli Stumpf finished 8-of-12 passing for 84 yards.
“We spotted them 14 points, came out a little jumpy,” Ashland junior quarterback Nathan Bernhard said. “We made a lot of mistakes, shot ourselves in the foot a little bit with some penalties.”
As wide as the final score looked, the Arrows actually had the ball in Big Walnut territory midway through the third quarter with the chance to take the lead, down 14-10.
But facing a third-and-3 on the Golden Eagles 48, Ashland committed a false start that was followed by a Bernhard incompletion.
Big Walnut got the ball back with a little over 4 minutes to play in the third and Buirley turned in his most jaw-dropping run of the night.
The sophomore took a handoff up the middle and seemed to have nowhere to go. But then he bounced it to the left sideline, dodged three different tackles, narrowly stayed in-bounds and cut back all the way across the field to score in the right corner on a 69-yard backbreaker.
Ashland had to punt out of its own end zone on the ensuing drive and Buirley put the nail in the coffin with 10 seconds left in the third.
A 15-yard facemask penalty on the Arrows moved the Golden Eagles past midfield and Buirley split the middle of the defense untouched for a 46-yard score that made it 28-10.
“Nolan’s a special kid,” said Big Walnut coach Curtis Crager, whose sophomore now has over 1,900 rushing yards and 26 TDs this season. “He runs so hard, he breaks tackles, he’s got good vision and speed. A couple times, I thought he was down and he kept going.
“Our offensive line did a fabulous job and they take pride in what Nolan’s doing.”
The Arrows were forced into all-or-nothing mode at that point, as Bernhard guided them down the field early in the fourth quarter with completions to Gabe Baith (five catches, 67 yards), Sauder and Dakota Kruty.
But in a microcosm of the game for the AHS offense, the drive stalled inside the Golden Eagle red zone. A fourth-and-goal Bernhard pass from the 5-yard line went incomplete.
Frustratingly, Ashland got into Big Walnut territory on six of its first seven drives of the game – four of those advancing into the red zone – but the Arrows had just 10 points to show for it.
The team’s lone scores came on a Carson O’Brien 28-yard field goal to make the score 14-3 late in the second quarter, and 59-yard scoring strike from Bernhard to Sauder that made it 14-10 four plays into the third.
The run game that Ashland had been able to lean on all season with Bernhard and Grayson Baith managed just 44 yards on 16 carries.
“We got some short fields and we were in five-wide, and when you can’t run the ball at all, it makes it difficult to score down there,” Bernhard said. “That was the difference in this game – they controlled the line of scrimmage in the red zone.
“They put us in a difficult situation (having an early double-digit lead). That’s not how we’ve played all year.”
Crager said he lost sleep all week trying to prepare for the Bernhard-led offense, which was averaging 35.8 points per game.
The junior was still stellar in the pass game, finishing 23-of-37 for 310 yards. The touchdown to Sauder was the 75th of Bernhard’s career (passing and rushing combined).
“He is big time and their kids are special,” Crager said. “I saw every team that played these guys and nothing worked against them. We were just fortunate enough tonight.”
Bernhard connected plenty with Gabe Baith (nearly 900 yards receiving this season) and Killian O’Brien (five catches for 43 yards Friday, over 700 yards for the season), but Ashland’s all-around standout of the night was Sauder.
Recently named the Ohio Cardinal Conference Defensive Player of the Year, the senior stacked up 163 receiving yards on eight catches Friday.
He said it was a full-circle night for him because Marion Harding was also where he had his first varsity start and touchdown.
“Looking back, we did so many incredible things and I would have never thought we would have done that going into the year,” Sauder said. “We have nothing to be ashamed of.”
The Ashland defense got key stops at different junctures from Gunner Lacey, Gavin Hoffman, Brandon Briggs and Joey Isenhart, but the 28 points were one fewer than the most the Arrows had given up all season.
Buirley’s 318 rushing yards and four scores were that much more impressive considering the AHS defense had allowed just 1,073 yards and 11 touchdowns on the ground in the previous 12 games combined.
“This is going to hurt, and especially for the seniors, it hurts,” said Valentine, now 147-67 in 19 seasons leading the Arrows. “But I couldn’t be prouder of this group for the effort, the time, the leadership, the hard work we’ve put in to go through the season and allow us to have a great year.
“We brought a whole community together and really did a lot of good things.”
“It was a historic season for the school, one short of finishing the job when it comes to the winningest season,” Bernhard said. “That’s something we wanted to do, and then give it a shot against Massillon (next week).
“Unfortunately, that’s not how it went.”
Also in the OCC
It was an extra-difficult third-round for the OCC as a whole.
Along with Ashland’s loss, West Holmes (7-6) dropped a 35-21 decision to undefeated St. Clairsville in Division IV, Region 15, while Lexington was rolled 35-7 by Toledo Central Catholic (12-1) in their Division III, Region 10 pairing.
