[PaytoPlay]

Congrats to Ashland. I went to the game last night and it was a really good game. A few observations.

The margin -- Belfry trailed 21-7 at halftime. In the first half Ashland benefited from a muffed punt on about the 15 yard line of Belfry. After two stuffed running plays, Elam found the TE over the middle on a nice play for a score. The other two first half Ashland TD's came as a result of two long bombs from Elam of Ashland. The first was a great throw and Massey ran under the ball when Belfry's defender sorta lost his man while looking up for the ball. The second bomb was a blown coverage. Guy went about 50+ before getting pulled down at the 1 and they punched it in. Other than those three pass plays, Ashland really didn't do anything offensively.

Belfry dominated the second half up until ~ 3:25 to go in the 4th quarter when they made the game 21-20. Haywood called a timeout to consider going for two or the tie. He chose to kick - and it was no good. Again, with 3:25 left in the game, Belfry had a chance to tie or take the lead.

To Ashland's credit, Massey broke the long run when the Pirates needed a stop the most. With about 2:15 to go, on 3rd and 5, Massey went off tackle for about 65 yards. I listended to the stats from 97.1 (Ashland's broadcast) on the way home. Ashland had something like 117 yards on 24 carries. Prior to Massey's 65 yarder, they had ~50 on 23 carries. Belfry's D stuffed Ashland at the LOS basically all night. Two (granted well executed) deep balls were the difference in this game.

The last TD came with 1:10 to go when Belfry was down 8 and out of timeouts, trying to throw the ball down the field. QB was crushed and fumbled, scoop and score. Ball game.

Belfry had 19 first downs to Ashland's 10. Belfry outgained Ashland something like ~355 to ~305. Someone can post the article from the Daily Indpendent later to get the exact numbers.

This was a tight, good, hard fought game. Ashland deserved to win. They saw Belfry was selling out to stop the run and hurt them deep a couple times early, and made the big run to put the game on ice late when they had to. That is what good teams do.

As a Belfry fan, I love this game. I said before the night, win or lose it was going to be a important test. I think Belfry got a lot out of the game, including some experience for Keaton Taylor and Sani Warren. They also got exposed a bit on the deep ball. Breathitt Co. has to take notice of the secondary weaknesses.