Fairfield High School football snaps 17-game losing streak to St. John behind Ashtin Cochran

LANGDON – To find the last time the Fairfield Falcons won a football game, you would have to dig back to Sept. 20, 2019 when the Falcons routed the Burrton Chargers 56-12. The Falcons followed without scoring in the next five games, forfeiting their final game in 2019 and being blown out in the 2020 season opener against Stafford. 

That can all be put to history now as junior Ashtin Cochran scored two touchdowns to help the Falcons snap their 17-game losing streak, beating the St. John Tigers 50-0 Monday in Langdon.

Cochran was stellar as he combined for 272 all-purpose yards (three catches for 78 yards and four carries for 194 yards), an interception and two tackles. Senior quarterback Brady Fowler completed 67% of his passes for 126 passing yards for two touchdowns and passer rating 149.3.

Hewitt said Fowler was one of the kids that had to take a huge step at the beginning of the season, despite being a 5-foot-7 quarterback, and he did Monday night.

"Brady looked like he understood what he was doing," Hewitt said. "He was making good, quality reads, running the ball when he needed to, throwing the ball when he had the time to, and delivered some really nice passes and some really crucial runs throughout the game.

"Ashtin had his head in it last night. He was seeing the field the way he needs to and making good cuts and maximizing yards gained."

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The Falcons totaled 402 yards of offense, had a fumble recovery and two interceptions. 

St. John was fresh off of a week of canceled activities and classes due to high numbers of COVID-19 cases. The two schools were originally scheduled to play on Friday, Sept. 17 but moved the game to Monday, which was the day St. John reopened.

Ending the two-year doubt in the win column, Hewitt said he hopes the kids can use the win as a momentum carrier in a short week going on the road to play Pretty Prairie (2-1). For the program itself, he said Monday's game has to be the point of turning the program in the right direction.

"This needs to the culture shift," Hewitt said. "We need to drive off of what happened (Monday night) and continue to play that type of football. Our defense played really well. We played excited. We played the way that I've been trying to get them to play for the first two weeks of the year, and we need to continue that through Friday and the rest of the year."

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Fairfield will look to win their second game in a row against the Bulldogs, and if done, it would be the first time since 2014 when the Falcons beat Norwich and Hutchinson-Central Christian in back-to-back games 102-56 and 56-46.

"It was absolute excitement," Fairfield head coach Heath Hewitt said. "They were stoked, and they played really well. They earned it (Monday) night."