Madison beats Lexington for first time since 2015 in OT, OCC thriller

LEXINGTON — The Madison Rams played party crashers on Friday night.

With a 20-14 overtime win over their Ohio Cardinal Conference and Richland County rival Lexington, the Rams earned their first win over the Minutemen since 2015 and crashed Lex’s homecoming in the process.

The Madison Rams controlled most of the first half. There wasn’t much offensive action at all in the first quarter until Carson Cook connected with Camden Moysi, who ran 64 yards for the first score of the game. Then, in the second quarter, Cook connected with Julian Washington for a 41-yard touchdown pass. The Rams held a 14-0 lead at the break.

Moysi finished the game with three receptions for 81 yards and a score.

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“That was the game plan all week, come out hot. Not ideal weather, but this team is a rival for us, and we bounced back after some stuff didn’t go our way,” Moysi said.

The Rams bounced back at the perfect moment, ultimately picking up a 20-14 overtime win over Ohio Cardinal Conference foe Lexington.

Lexington didn’t go down without a fight. At halftime, the weather picked up. Pouring rain and gusty winds stayed until the game was over.

Despite the worsening weather and trailing, it was Lexington which found renewed energy both on and off the field. The sideline became energetic and the offense started moving the ball.

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“At halftime we challenged these guys. We said listen, 14-0 is nothing, we can come back and win the game. And they fed off of it. Our sideline was great and we just made some plays,” said Lexington head coach Jacob Owens.

Jayden Perkins connected with Jacob Gordon on a huge 37-yard pass to set up a Perkins three-yard touchdown run with 8:57 left in the game, cutting the lead to 14-7. Lexington’s defense quickly forced a turnover on downs to get the ball back.

This time, the huge play came when Perkins connected on a 4th-and-11 with an 18 yard pass to Jackson Eichorn. The offense drove right back down the field, ending in the quarterback’s two-yard touchdown run this time. The game was tied with 1:55 in the fourth quarter.

“I’m proud of all our kids. They executed the calls and made the plays; we just didn’t come out with the win,” added Owens.

Perkins, just a sophomore, finished with 81 passing yards and 117 rushing yards.

The game headed to overtime, where Madison took over and just needed 20 yards. It was Aiden Proctor who had the eventual game winning touchdown run on a three-yard carry. Proctor was reliable through the night, finishing with 77 yards and one touchdown.

“I’ve said all year that one of the things I want to look at is when we’re in those situations, we want to know who we want to have the ball in their hands and we know how gritty he is and how tough he is. He’s a guy that’s played a ton of football for us so I’m extremely proud of him,” said Madison head coach Kobi Johnson.

On the next drive, Lexington ran the ball four times and gained 9 yards, just one yard short of the first down. Ball game.

Camden Moysi was among the Madison defenders who made the stop.

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“The defense, talk about buckling down. Our guys were able to muscle up and get one more stop at the end. Really proud of all our seniors leading this group. Everyone talks about our young guys, but for our senior group, they’ve been through a lot so really excited for them to be able to finish up strong here,” said Madison head coach Kobi Johnson.

Madison improves to 4-5 and takes on rival Mansfield Senior next week at home, which just own one win on the season. It’s the Rams first win over Lexington since 2015.

“It was a tough win. I thought we played really well there in the first half. I told those guys I’m going to be happy but there’s a lot of things that we have to clean up. The growth of our team and where things are starting to show that it’s changing is when things go bad like that, and our response to it,” said Johnson.

Lexington falls to 1-8. The Minutemen will travel to Ashland for their season finale.

“Our kids played hard. I’m so proud of our kids for persevering and not giving up even down 14-0 in the rain. They wanted to win this for our seniors, it just sucks that we didn’t get it done,” added Owens.

This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Madison beats Lexington for first time since 2015 in OT, OCC thriller