By Doug Haidet ASHLAND – It seems like Kennedy Lacey’s entire basketball career has revolved around sending warnings. In her first varsity game as an Ashland High School freshman, she posted a 16-point, 12-rebound double-double against Norwalk. Four days later, Lacey went for 12 and 10 against Mansfield Senior. By the end of her freshman campaign, the Ohio Cardinal Conference first-teamer had five double-doubles and six 20-point games, averaging 15.7 points per contest. T

By Doug Haidet ASHLAND – The wheels didn’t just come falling off Saturday for the Minnesota Duluth offense. The Ashland defense ferociously ripped them off – then the Eagles scrapped the rest of the car, too. By the end of their first-round NCAA Division II playoff game inside Jack Miller Stadium, the visiting Bulldogs were stuck with a 32-7 trouncing and a long trip home. Ashland (10-2) forced turnovers on four consecutive drives in the second half, slowly burying Duluth (

By Doug Haidet ASHLAND – Seven months after originally committing to play football at Appalachian State – and with the NCAA Division I early signing period (Dec. 3-5) closing in – Ashland High School senior quarterback Nathan Bernhard has flipped his commitment to the University of Maryland. Bernhard said that when the Arrows’ season ended November 7 in the playoffs at Columbus DeSales, he felt he was still headed to the Division I Sun Belt Conference school in Boone, North C

ASHLAND – If Michael Shimek was asking around for a hype man, the first guy in line would be Ashland University defensive ends coach Andy Tabler. Now in his sixth season on the AU staff, Tabler still remembers watching film of Shimek getting to the quarterback while starring as a first-team All-Ohioan at Hoover High School. The recollection is so vivid, Tabler even remembers the number on Shimek’s jersey – No. 18 – as if it was the passcode to his ATM card. “You saw it on fil

ASHLAND – It’s been more than three decades since the Ashland girls basketball team was the hunted. After a transformational breakthrough for the program a year ago – including their first 20-win season and first district championship since 1979 – the Arrows are well aware of their new reality. “If you would have talked to me at the beginning of the year last year, I wouldn’t have told you we would have had the season that we did,” sixth-year Ashland head coach Renee Holt sai

By Doug Haidet ASHLAND – So much for the weakness residing in the trenches. After last spring’s graduation purged the vast majority of their key contributors, Ashland’s linemen of 2025 have spent the past 11 weeks proving any doubters wrong. “The only returning (full-season starter) we had was (senior Brandon Briggs), so coming into this year we thought our biggest problem would be our line,” senior two-way lineman Budda Martin said. “But I think our line has done great and i

By Doug Haidet ASHLAND – Gabe Baith didn’t have to say a word. Instead, he sent out a deafening warning with his feet on the very first play of the 2025 season. The senior returned the opening kickoff of Ashland’s opening game against Bay 89 yards for a touchdown. Within 13 seconds, teams were on notice, and Baith has rarely taken his foot off the gas since. “When I was on the sideline, I just had a feeling I was gonna take one back,” said Baith when recalling his off-to-the-

By Doug Haidet ASHLAND – Gunner Lacey probably would have hit a mailman had one walked across the turf at Community Stadium last Friday. The Ashland High School senior linebacker was in a rabid frenzy looking for tackles with Wooster in town, knowing he needed 15 more to set the AHS record for career tackles. But the Arrows blasted the Generals, 52-7, with Lacey even collecting the first defensive touchdown of his career on a fumble return, and he and the starting defense too

By Doug Haidet ASHLAND – After beating Madison in Week 6, Ashland senior quarterback Nathan Bernhard was handed a pair of game balls by AHS athletic director Jason Goings for posting the 100th and school-record-breaking 101st touchdowns of his career. Bernhard, an Appalachian State commit, has since bumped that number to 111 (64 passing, 47 rushing). Had Goings waited until the end of this season to give out such recognition for massive career numbers, he would have needed a

Written by Doug Haidet There is a case to be made that this week’s Ashland at Lexington collision is the biggest Week 10 face-off in the history of Ohio Cardinal Conference football. Since the league’s founding in 2003, only two other times has there been a winner-take-all meeting in the final week of the regular season between two league unbeatens (Orrville at Wooster in 2004 and Ashland at Lexington in 2007). This year’s version pits the Arrows (9-0, 5-0 OCC) against the Mi