Minutemen Look For First Win Over Quakers

The Lexington Minutemen have another big conference game Friday night back at home as they face the New Philadelphia Quakers. Heading into week eight the Minutemen are 6-1 overall and 3-0 in the conference, tied for first place with Ashland. The Minutemen are also on a five game winning streak that began with a close win over Clear Fork in week three. New Philadelphia has had a roller coaster of a season starting out 1-3 through before rattling off three straight wins coming into this week. The Quakers are 4-3 overall and 3-1 in the OCC, good for a third place tie with West Holmes.

Friday night may seem like any other, but this one means a little more. This is a game that everyone around the Lexington football program wants. That may sound obvious, everyone wants to win every game but the all-time series against New Philadelphia has been one sided, literally. It's a very short three game history between these two schools since the Quakers joined the conference in 2022, but New Philly has been perfect so far. The Minutemen have had to travel out to Quaker stadium twice and this Friday night will be the second time that New Philadelphia will come to Lexington. Despite the series being 3-0 in favor of New Philly, the games have been extremely close and low scoring with the Quakers winning all three games by a combined 26 points:

2024 - New Philly 29-13 (Quaker Stadium)

2023 - New Philly 21-14 (Lexington)

2022 - New Philly 10-7 (Quaker Stadium)

If Lexington being 0-3 against New Philadelphia on the gridiron isn't reason enough to go and win this game, you can throw in the fact that Lexington has had it's best start since 2008 (when the Minutemen went 10-0) and is right in the middle of an OCC title race, something the Minutemen have only won twice since the founding of the Ohio Cardinal Conference in 2003.

With every win, the opportunities for this Minuteman football team continue to present themselves. If you asked people around the community what game they had circled this year you probably would have heard an overwhelming percentage answer with one word, Ashland. The week 10 matchup with the Arrows has been looming since the Minutemen lost a heartbreaker in week 10 at Community Stadium last season. A lot of preseason hype pegged the Arrows and the Minutemen as the favorites to win the conference with the winner of week 10 taking the conference title. But, none of that matters if either team slips up before then and New Philadelphia this Friday night presents the next obstacle in Lexington's way.

In addition to beating New Philly for the first time and staying in the OCC title hunt there are postseason goals to reach for the Minutemen as well and winning on Friday night goes a long way to having a major advantage in the playoffs. Right now as we sit here heading into game number eight, the Minutemen have the four seed in their region which would be good enough for a first round bye and a second round home game in the playoffs. There's still a lot of football left and that's a fluid situation of course, but the Minutemen have set themselves up nicely to have opportunities like that ahead of them.

Last week the Minutemen took the long road trip to West Holmes and took a commanding 34-0 lead into halftime and set up the fourth straight game with a running clock to start the second half. In those four running-clock games the Minutemen have outscored their opponents 211-27. Lexington's defense has amassed an incredible 23 takeaways in seven games, looking to break the record of 33 set back in the 1980's.

Quarterback Joey Caudill leads the team in all-purpose yards with 1,295. He has also compiled 1,055 passing yards and 17 touchdowns with just four interceptions. Caudill has added four rushing touchdowns and pick six on defense as a linebacker as well.

Leading the way for the receiver corp is Brayden Fogle with 365 yards and six touchdowns, followed by Seven Allen with 351 yards and four touchdowns. Avery Crawford has added five touchdowns of his own to go along with 205 yards receiving. Dantrell Hughes is the final Minuteman over the century mark with 132 yards and two touchdowns.

Defensively, Joey Caudill leads the team in tackles with 32.5, while Cole Eichorn has piled up three sacks and Luke Triska with an incredible 8.5 tackles for loss. Seven Allen leads the no fly zone with three interceptions.

Lexington will kick off at home friday night at 7pm. You can hear the pregame show and all of the game action on fearthevillage.com.