SEASON OPENER … Montpelier’s Dom Guilford looks for a running lane after taking a toss from Hartsock.
PHOTOS BY REBEKAH DELL / THE VILLAGE REPORTER
TOUCHDOWN SCAMPER … Montpelier quarterback Wesley Hartsock scores on a 19-yard touchdown run in the first quarter. VIEW 100 PHOTOS OF THIS CONTEST FOR FREE AT WWW.THEVILLAGEREPORTER.COM
By: Joe Blystone
THE VILLAGE REPORTER
publisher@thevillagereporter.com
MONTPELIER (Aug. 20, 2026) – When push came to shove, Montpelier did most of the pushing and shoving.
The Locos’ offensive line opened gaps for Carter Meek and Wesley Hartsock to gain 147 second-half yards on the ground and chalk up a 21-14 win over Antwerp on opening night of the 2026 football season.
“1-0 feels a lot better than 0-1,” Loco coach Andy Robinson said. “We have a great group of kids and a lot of new kids. We play five or six sophomores.
“We have a brand-new quarterback who has never played back there before in Wesley Hartsock, and they just played their rear ends off all game long.”
It was actually Antwerp that controlled the ground game early, marching 65 yards on 10 plays on its first possession to take a 7-0 lead.
Quarterback Ryder Hines toted the ball six times for 51 yards on the first series, including the last three for a score with 8:11 left in the first quarter.
The Locos came right back, putting the ball in the end zone seven plays later.
Two first-down runs from Hartsock, along with a personal foul penalty on the Archers, set up Hartsock’s romp from 19 yards out, where he reversed field, going right, then left, for the tying points with 4:19 on the clock.
That score stayed the same until late in the second quarter. Kian Foster’s pick of a Hines aerial set up Montpelier at its own 45.
A penalty for intentional grounding pushed the Locos back into a third-and-23 situation, but Jacob Lyons floated behind a pair of Archer defenders who got caught looking into the backfield, and Hartsock found the junior receiver for 55 yards and a first down in the red zone.
Lyons then hauled in Hartsock’s throw against the grain three plays later to give the Locos a 14-7 lead with 1:52 left in the half.
Montpelier doubled that margin on the first drive of the second half. Meek, who had just 14 first-half yards, found a cavernous hole in the middle and bolted 70 yards to the Antwerp 2 on the first play from scrimmage.
Three snaps later, Hartsock tossed a jump pass to Malachi Smith in the end zone to push the Locos up 21-7.
Antwerp came right back with an 11-play, 62-yard drive capped by Hines’ dive in from the 1 to cut the Archers’ deficit in half at 21-14 with 3:48 to go in the third.
The Locos ran out the rest of the third quarter on the ground but had to punt the ball back to the Archers in the first minute of the fourth.
Hines had five more carries for 16 yards to take the ball into Loco territory, but his fourth-down pass fell incomplete, giving possession back to Montpelier with more than eight minutes left in the game.
From that point, Montpelier rang up three first downs, running 11 plays to take the ball deep into Antwerp territory.
It was all Meek and Hartsock, chewing up 54 yards of real estate like they were chewing up a Pizza Hut buffet table and siphoning more than six minutes off the clock.
“We thought we had some good stuff going. Trust me, I love throwing the ball, but we can run it a little bit,” Robinson said.
“I would’ve loved to see us punch it in at the end, but I thought we were fresh coming out at the half, and I said we are going to run it.”
“I think Carter Meek is one of the best backs in northwest Ohio, and no one gives him any credit.”
Antwerp got a fourth-down stop at its own 8, but that came with under two minutes left and no timeouts on the Archers’ side.
Foster sealed the game with his second pick of the night with 1:44 left to put the Locos in victory formation.
Meek ran for 121 yards on 14 carries, 107 of that output coming in the second half. Hartsock tacked on 57 more yards, also on 14 carries.
The senior quarterback had 40 of his yards in the second half. Hines was nearly the entire Antwerp offense, running for 115 yards on 23 carries.
Montpelier travels to Swanton (1-0) on Friday, Aug. 28.
AHS 7 0 7 0 – 14
MHS 7 7 7 0 – 21
A – Hines 3-yd run (kick good)
M – Hartsock 19-yd run (kick good)
M – Lyons 17-yd pass from Hartsock (kick good)
M – Smith 5-yd pass from Hartsock (kick good)
A – Hines 1-yd run (kick good)
