It was the defense that stepped up Sept. 8 when Ashland beat No. 5 Wayne State. Saturday, it was the offense’s turn to have a big game when the Eagles travelled to Ferris State.

Senior quarterback Taylor Housewright exploded for 438 yards passing and four touchdowns as Ashland beat the Bulldogs 47-32 to remain unbeaten.

Housewright completed 25-36 passes to seven different receivers and did not throw an interception.

It seemed like everyone got a piece of the huge (537 yard) offensive pie.

Sophomore wide receiver Dan Piko had six receptions for 142 yards, sophomore Eric Thompkins caught six passes for 120 yards and senior Anthony Capasso snagged five passes for 70 yards and a touchdown.

Sophomore running back Anthony Taylor caught three passes out of the backfield for 56 yards. He also led AU in rushing with 47 yards on 14 carries.

Freshman fullback Steven Nagy only touched the ball on four plays, but he crossed the goal line on three of them. He leads AU with five touchdowns this year.

The game did not always look like it would be a shootout, as both teams struggled to get going. The Eagles scored the only three points of the first quarter when redshirt freshman Cameron Casey—kicking in place of an injured Greg Galloway—booted a 31-yard field goal with just over six minutes gone.

The Eagles broke the game open in the second quarter, using three Housewright touchdown passes to go into halftime with a seemingly comfortable 23-0 lead.

Ashland struck quickly on its first drive of the second quarter, Housewright finding Nagy on an 18-yard pass to cap a five-play, 69-yard drive that lasted all of 1:25.

With 7:59 left in the half, Capasso scored his only touchdown of the day on a six-yard pass from Housewright. Casey missed the extra point, leaving the score 16-0 in favor of AU.

Nagy scored his second touchdown a little more than six minutes later, this time on a seven-yard pass from Housewright that came at the end of an eight-play, 80 yard drive.

Perhaps feeding off of its effort against Wayne State, the defense held the Bulldogs offense—which scored 49 points and had over 600 yards the week before against Lake Erie—scoreless with just 150 total yards.

Ferris State adjusted at halftime, however, and scored on its first two drives of the second half to pull within nine points with 8:40 remaining in the third quarter. The Bulldogs had 354 yards of total offense in the second half.

With 36 seconds left in the quarter, Nagy broke the plane on a second and goal from the one-yard line to widen the Eagles’ lead to 30-14 heading into the fourth quarter.

The scoring was back and forth for the entirety of the final quarter, with FSU outscoring Ashland 18-17.

The Eagles answered a 31-yard Bulldogs touchdown pass on the first play of the quarter with a 12-yard score on a third down pass from Housewright to tight end/fullback Logan Slavinski. It was Slavinski’s first catch of the season.

After FSU scored again to make the score 37-29, Ashland killed 6:59 with a 16-play, 76-yard drive that ended with a 21-yard Casey field goal.

The Bulldogs answered with a field goal of their own to pull within a possession (40-32), but Piko killed any chance of a comeback when he returned the onside kick 43 yards for a touchdown with 36 seconds left.

Ashland was happy to escape with the win—which bumped them up to No. 17 in the latest American Football Coaches Association poll and No. 25 in the d2football.com poll—but will find cause for concern in giving up 32 points in the second half.

The Bulldogs were equally efficient through the air and on the ground, equally splitting their 504 yards of total offense between the two areas. Skyler Stoker rushed 11 times for 97 yards and a touchdown and quarterback Jason Vander Laan ran 18 times for 75 yards.

Through the air, Vander Laan and Taylor Masiewicz combined to complete 18 passes to nine different receivers.

The Bulldogs did not turn the ball over once against an Eagles defense that had forced five takeaways in their first two games.

Junior defensive back led AU with 13 tackles and junior linebacker Cody Bloom had 12 to bump his season total to 37, which leads the team.

Ashland and Ferris State each had 27 first downs and there were no sacks allowed in the game.

The Eagles now shift their focus to Northern Michigan. The Wildcats are 1-2 (0-2 GLIAC) and coming off of a 47-7 loss to Ohio Dominican.

Ashland will fly to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula on Friday for Saturday’s game at NMU’s Superior Dome.