The No. 22-ranked Ashland University football team maintained its spot tied atop the Great Midwest Athletic Conference following a run-dominated 31-14 win at Ohio Dominican on Saturday (Oct. 18) afternoon.
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A fifth consecutive victory puts the Eagles at 6-1 overall and 5-0 in the Great Midwest, while the Panthers move to 3-3, 2-3.
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Ashland ran for 202 yards and three touchdowns on 38 attempts on Saturday, giving it 598 yards and 11 TDs on the ground in the last three outings.
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Redshirt freshman kicker
Manaki Watanabe salvaged the opening drive of the game by hitting a career-long 50 yard field goal – two yards shy of the school record of 52 yards by
Gary Kester in 1969.
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Junior tailback
Ty'aris Stevenson followed that with a 25-yard touchdown run with 4:36 to go in the opening quarter. It was Stevenson's team-best sixth rushing score of 2025, and his 17
th over the last dozen games going back to the end of 2024.
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The Panthers got on the board early in the second quarter, as quarterback Carson Parker threw a four-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Jayden Cornell on fourth-and-goal to make it a 10-7 game.
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Ashland's counter came in the form of an eight-yard scoring strike from senior quarterback
Cameron Blair to freshman wide receiver
D.J. Harvey, giving the Eagles a 17-7 advantage with 3:19 to go in the half. A scoring drive which was aided by a 14-yard run by senior punter
Jaden Cook on fourth down went 68 yards in 15 plays and took 8:42 off the clock – and it resulted in the 20,000
th point in program history.
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With 17 seconds to go until the break, a Parker seven-yard TD pass to running back Nathan Webster put the gap back to a field goal at 17-14.
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Inside of the 10-minute mark of the third quarter, the Eagles started on the Ohio Dominican 36-yard line following a punt. Blair cashed in on a seven-yard scoring run, once again putting AU up by 10 points at 24-14.
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Sophomore tailback
Willtrell Hartson ran in from three yards out with 9:03 left in the game for the final margin of victory.
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THE WIN'S TOP NUGGETS
- Harvey grabbed seven passes for 46 yards and the score, and Blair passed for 89 yards, ran for 27, and accounted for two scores.
- On the rushing flip side, the Eagle defense kept the Panthers to 43 yards on 24 tries (1.8-yard average).
- In seven games this season, AU has outscored opponents 51-3 in the first quarter and 54-7 in the third quarter.
- Ashland has a 9-5 series lead over ODU.
NEXT UP
The final regular-season conference game on Oct. 25 at 1 p.m. at Tiffin (5-2, 4-1).
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