'We’re not losing this game': Senior QB Austin Brenner rallies Ashland past Ohio Dominican

With 7:40 seconds left in the fourth quarter, 94 yards and the Ohio Dominican defense stood between the Ashland University football team and its unbeaten season.

No problem.

With the score tied 7-7, senior quarterback Austin Brenner and running back Larry Martin powered the Eagles on their winning drive, covering the needed distance in 12 plays to pull out a 14-7 victory over the Panthers.

Ashland is now 6-0 overall and 4-0 in the Great Midwest Athletic Conference. The Eagles are tied with Tiffin atop the G-MAC table. Ohio Dominican slipped to 4-3 overall and 3-2 in the league with the hard-fought loss.

“It was just a great win,” AU coach Lee Owens said. “It’s awesome being 6-0 and that was a really good football team we beat.”

Brenner, who got dinged up last week against Walsh, didn’t take a snap in practice all week. He wasn’t throwing well yet on Saturday morning and the Eagles decided to go with backup Trevor Bycznski.

The sophomore QB played well in his first start, completing 15 of 20 throws for 145 yards in the first half. He led his first four drives into ODU territory but each time the Panthers held the Eagles off the scoreboard.

Scoreless and trailing for the first time all season, enter Brenner in the second half. He finally got the Eagles into the end zone late in the third quarter, completing six straight passes, with the final one a 31-yard hookup with Garrett Turnbaugh for the score and a 7-7 tie.

“The nature of how that game was unfolding, you just needed Brenner’s spark,” Owens said about the decision to make the switch at halftime. “We needed his ability to extend plays … make plays and first downs with his legs. That’s who he is and that’s what makes him special.

“We needed that in the second half and he knew we needed that in the second half.”

Then the late heroics came with time ticking down in the fourth quarter.

“I just told the guys, we’re not losing this game,” Brenner said. “We’re going to go down and we’re going to win it. Everybody had the confidence we were going to make it happen.”

On the winning drive, Brenner completed 3 of 4 passes for 38 yards and had a big 10-yard gain to keep the possession alive.

Complementing Brenner’s arm was Martin doing the hard work on the ground that finally wore down the ODU defense. Martin, a 5-8, 206-pound junior, got the drive started with a 13-yard blast up the middle to get the Eagles out of deep trouble.

He carried six times for 41 yards and drove in from the 5-yard line with 1:47 left to put AU in front for the first time.

“It was a big adrenaline boost,” Martin said about his first-down run to get the drive going. “After that first run, we kind of just knew we were going to execute and finish this game off.

“We just knew we had to drive it down, don’t lose any yards, just keep getting first downs and keep executing.”

Ohio Dominican still had 1:47 to try to tie the score but the AU defense wasn’t about to let that happen.

Starting at their own 24-yard line, a first down pass got the Panthers three yards. But that was the only positive for ODU on its final possession.

AU junior defensive end Deeb Alawan tossed Panthers quarterback Jake Byrd for a 10-yard loss on second down, and then a false start penalty moved the ball back to the ODU 12.

Under pressure again on third-and-22, Byrd misfired on a pass over the middle. He did scramble for 18 yards on fourth down, but it wasn’t enough as the AU defenders snuffed out ODU’s final chance.

“Our defense played lights out,” defensive end Jeffrey Barnett said. “Coaches had a great game plan and a whole bunch of players stepped up.

“It feels great. I love playing football games like that that come down to the wire. It’s always good winning one of these.”

The Eagles, who came into the game with Division II’s third-ranked scoring defense, allowed a touchdown on ODU’s first possession. It took the Panthers just two plays to do it — a Byrd to Andrew Wolf completion for 29 yards and a 35-yard scoring run by Travis Whittaker.

But after giving up 64 yards and the TD just three minutes into the game, the AU defense kept the Panthers bottled up the rest of the way, allowing just 142 more yards.

Byrd came into Saturday throwing for 300 yards per game. Against the Eagles, he completed just 10 of 22 attempts for 91 yards.

He also was sacked four times with Barnett leading the way. The junior from Solon had 10 tackles, one sack, two tackles for loss and one forced fumble.

“Our guys are just dogs like that,” Barnett said about the pass defense. "(Devin) Prude, (Jourdan) Swett, (Justin) Moore, Jovon (Sewell), they’re all just amazing football players. It’s hard to beat them and they stepped up big time.

“Everybody made sure they did their job, everybody stepped up. We knew we were going to be in a dogfight the whole game and we were ready to play.”

Martin led Ashland’s ground game with 84 yards on 20 carries with the one TD. Brenner finished with 43 yards on six carries. He also completed 12 of 18 passes for 127 yards and one TD with one interception.

Turnbaugh led the receivers with eight catches for 103 yards and one TD. Logan Bolin had seven receptions for 78 yards.

In the end, it was the gritty play of Brenner and the defense that turned back ODU time after time that allowed the Eagles to stay unbeaten.

“The defense … put us in a situation where (Austin) could go out and play in the second half and still be in the football game,” Owens said. “And he flat told me at halftime, ‘Coach, you play me in the second half and I’ll win this football game for us.’ He believed that.

“To think that he was going to be able to go in and win the football game for us, it’s a pretty amazing deal. But we’ve known Austin to be that kind of amazing story.”

This article originally appeared on Ashland Times Gazette: Austin Brenner rallies Ashland over Ohio Dominican in G-MAC football