After a very long road trip, the Scotties football team took to the field at the Ashland Community Stadium to face the Ashland Arrows in their first official game of the season. The Dawgs received the first kickoff of the night and began a lengthy drive down the field. Senior #4 Drew Burkhart made sure that the Scotties capitalized on the drive with a finishing touch of a 19-yard touchdown pass to senior #2 Luke Lyall and with that Tri-Valley was on the scoreboard with a score of 7 – 0 after the PAT from one of the other seniors #8 Coleson McCullough with 7:48 left to go in the quarter. The Arrows stepped up after the kickoff for a drive of their own that ended in a 17-yard quarterback-keeper touchdown run by Ashland’s #1 Landon McFrederick to tie up the score at 7 – 7 before the end of the first quarter.
Early on in the second quarter the Arrows were back at it with an intense drive that got them within 12 yards of the goal before their #6 Ethan Truax grabbed a pass from McFrederick in the endzone to take the lead at 14 to 7 against the Dawgs. McFrederick landed another pass with just 33 seconds left in the half to #20 Cayden Spotts and they ended the half sending the Scotties to the locker room down 21 – 7 after having the early lead.
After halftime, the Scotties hit the field with dogged determination to take this win home and to dominate the third quarter. Burkhart went right to work after a brief possession by the Arrows, taking first-down after first-down finally landing a long pass to #34 Sophomore Drake Durst and gaining ground on the lead putting the score at Arrows 21 – Dawgs 14. Tri-Valley again held the Arrows offense to just a short possession before returning to the endzone on a drive that ended with a 20-yard pass to #5 Senior Alex Williams to tie the score at 21 – 21 after the PAT by McCullough. After a few more minutes of defense, the Dawgs were ready to try again, and with a short pass from Burkhart to Durst, Drake took off like a rocket down the field for a 73-yard run just before he fumbled the ball on the Arrows 7-yard line. Fortunately, Alex Williams was there to jump on the ball in the endzone for another Scotties Touchdown and to take the lead at 28 – 21 before the end of the third quarter.
The fourth quarter was a rough struggle between both teams, early in the quarter, however, the Arrows managed a 3 yard run into the endzone to tie the game back at 28. The Dawgs fought hard to get the ball back down the field, but the Arrows defense was determined to hold them back. Finally, with only 3:09 left in the game, Burkhart took a short 2-yard quarterback keeper across the line for the final score of the night and took the lead to 35 – 28 over the arrows to win the game.
For the game, the Dawgs had 277 passing yards to the Arrows 148 and 103 rushing yards to the Arrows 140. Drew Burkhart had 20 completed passes out of 32 attempts. Coleson McCullough went 5 for 5 on point after kicks. This Friday, August 27th, the Dawgs face Licking Heights at the Jack at 7pm.
