MANSFIELD — Ashland’s juggernaut of a football team roared through Arlin Field on Friday night.
The Arrows blasted Mansfield Senior 48-19 for their 17th consecutive regular-season victory.
Senior quarterback Nathan Bernhard struck on Ashland’s first possession, finding Dakota Kruty for a 61-yard touchdown strike just 90 seconds into the game. The PAT was missed, but that 6-0 edge was just the primer for a huge first quarter.
Five minutes later, Bernhard struck again, this time with a 31-yard TD pass to Braden Donatini. Carson O’Brien’s PAT made it 13-0 with 5:03 showing in the period. Grayson Baith followed with a 36-yard scoring jaunt, and Bernhard’s 1-yard plunge pushed the margin to 27-0 through the first 12 minutes.
Senior High fought back on D.J. Corbin’s 1-yard TD blast just 27 seconds into the second period, but the Arrows tacked on two more scores. Grayson Baith punched in a 12-yard touchdown dash, while Killian O’Brien hauled in a 42-yard score to make it 41-6 at the half.
The second half began with a running clock, and Baith’s 2-yard TD scamper expanded the gap to 48-6 in the third quarter.
Mansfield Senior’s backup quarterback Ryan Au fired a pair of touchdown passes, 8 yards to Braylon Fletcher in the third period, and 21 yards to D.J. Corbin in the final stanza, to finish the scoring.
Bernhard completed 8-of-12 passes for 202 yards and three touchdowns. With this performance he went over 9,000 yards of total offense in his career, and has registered 61 touchdown passes. He hasn’t thrown an interception in his last 13 games, stretching across 254 pass attempts.
Carson O’Brien’s six PATs have him sitting at 152 ccareer points.
Corbin spearheaded the Tygers’ offense with four catches for 146 yards.
Ashland improves to 7-0 overall, 3-0 in the Ohio Cardinal Conference. The Arrows host West Holmes next week at Community Stadium.
Mansfield Senior falls to 0-7, 0-4. Coach Antonio Fletcher’s club travels to winless Wooster next week.
(Photos below were taken by Tom Theodore)
