Individual records often have no affect on the results of football games, but when Ashland senior quarterback Taylor Housewright threw his first interception in 377 pass attempts—two short of the all-division NCAA record—against Tiffin, head coach Lee Owens admits it took the wind out of his team’s sails.

The Eagles recovered quickly, however. They had to. With Ashland up 21-6, the interception gave the Dragons the ball on AU’s 16-yard line. Three plays and a pass interference call later, Tiffin had a first and goal from the two.

Then junior linebacker Cody Bloom forced TU quarterback Dan Pitts to fumble in the backfield and senior linebacker Tyler McFarlin jumped on the ball, ending the only real threat the Dragons posed in a 49-21 Ashland victory.

“It just drained us when that happened,” Owens said. “For the defense to go out and make that play and give the ball back to the offense (was huge).”

The win moved the Eagles to 10-0 overall and 9-0 in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, sealing Ashland’s first outright GLIAC championship.

Housewright came out on fire, completing his first five passes, including a 37-yard strike to senior wide receiver Anthony Capasso on the first play from scrimmage.

The Eagles got on the board at the end of their first drive with an eight-yard pass from Housewright to Anthony Thompkins.

By the end of the quarter, Housewright had thrown three touchdown passes—the others to sophomore tight end Logan Slavinski (two yards) and Capasso (33 yards)—and Ashland led 21-0.

Then the Dragons marched 80 yards in 12 plays to start the second quarter, capped by a one-yard touchdown run by running back Kevin Humphrey. A failed two-point conversion left the score at 21-6.

After back-to-back completions by Housewright on the ensuing drive, it looked like he was about to break former North Carolina State and Wisconsin and current Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson’s record for most pass attempts without an interception.

In fact, having gone 12-14 with three touchdowns to that point, it looked inevitable.

Unfortunately, Housewright’s pass on first and 19 from Ashland’s 10-yard line was thrown slightly behind sophomore running back Jordan McCune on the left side of the field.

The ball was tipped into the air by McCune and caught by diving Dragon defensive back Kyle Finch.

“I look back on it and just wonder if there was anything else we could do,” Owens said.

The play was eerily similar to the one on which former AU quarterback Billy Cundiff threw his only interception of the 2009 season, which also took place at Tiffin.

“That area of the field is just jinxed,” Owens said. “We should have stayed away from that area of the field.”

After McFarlin recovered Pitts’s fumble on the ensuing possession, the Eagles went to the ground, driving inside TU’s ten-yard line.

An attempt to go for it on fourth and four fell incomplete, however, and Ashland went into the half up 21-6.

The Eagles got their offense rolling again in the third quarter, sophomore running back Anthony Taylor finding the end zone from three yards out to bump the lead to 28-6.

Taylor ran for 61 yards and a touchdown on 21 carries and McCune rushed 11 times for 88 yards and a touchdown.

Taylor needs just 35 yards next week to reach the 1,000 yards for the season. McCune leads the team with 12 rushing touchdowns.

After the Eagles gained 277 rushing yards against Findlay the week before, Tiffin keyed on the Eagles’ ground attack from the start.

That allowed Housewright to go to the air. He finished 19 of 27 for 253 yards and four touchdowns.

On the year, Housewright has completed 68.1 percent of his passes for 2,713 yards and 27 touchdowns with just the one interception.

His final touchdown pass of the day went 21 yards to Dan Piko in the back left corner in the end zone. That erased a score from the Dragons that happened three minutes earlier and made it 35-14.

McCune ran in from 15 yards less than a minute into the fourth quarter to widen the lead to 42-14.

After Humphrey scored his second touchdown, TU opted to try an onside kick.

Ashland junior wide receiver David Soucie took the kick and ran 46 yards for another Ashland touchdown, erasing all doubt of an Eagle victory with 3:42 left.

Ashland remained No. 5 in the latest American Football Coaches Association Coaches’ Poll, but moved down a spot to No. 2 in the Nov. 5 Super Region 4 rankings.

Ahead of the Eagles in the regional rankings is the No. 1 team in the AFCA poll, Colorado State-Pueblo, who is also 10-0.

Ashland returns to Jack Miller Stadium for its final game of the regular season 1 p.m. Saturday against Notre Dame College.

It will be senior day for a slew of Eagles, including Housewright, who has been starting home football games in Ashland since his sophomore year of high school in 2005.

Other AU senior starters include Capasso, McFarlin, defensive back Mike McMillan, linebacker Jacob Lerman, defensive back Donnie Dottei and defensive lineman Tyler Houska.

Of course, an Ashland win would most likely mean at least one more home game for the Eagles in the NCAA Division II playoffs.