Photo by Joe Lovell Martins Ferry’s Ayden Ludolph powers through a Berne Union defender for a touchdown Friday at the Dave Bruney Football Complex.

MARTINS FERRY — It was just one of those days for Martins Ferry senior Ayden Ludolph.

Just hours after being named Homecoming King, Ludolph stepped on to the football field and had a night. The senior do-it-all accounted for 247 yards and five touchdowns in the first half as the Purple Riders raced to a big early lead and never looked back in celebrating Homecoming with a lop-sided 50-7 victory over Berne Union Friday night at Purple Rider Stadium inside the Dave Bruney Football Complex.

Coach Justin Kropka’s Martins Ferry squad improved to 6-1 on the season and will host winless Cambridge next week. The Riders have been rolling, outscoring their opponents by a whopping 147-7 margin over their last three games. Berne Union dropped to 2-5.

“Our defense has been playing well, but we are still very young on that side of the ball and still a work in progress,” Kropka admitted. “We start two freshmen, and possibly three next week on defense and to play with the teams we want to play with we have to get even better.”

Ferry scored three of the four times it possessed the ball in the first quarter, with the fourth ending in a fumble after a long pass. The hosts got the scoring going at the 10:13 mark with Ludolph’s first scoring strike, this one 21 yards to Tev’n Williams, who skirted the sideline to hit paydirt. Jacob Theaker’s first PAT made it 7-0.

A five-play, 80-yard march made it 14-0 with 3:04 showing in the opening quarter. The drive was capped with a 51-yard Ludolph bomb to junior Maurice Barnett streaking down the sidelines.

It was a Rockets’ mistake that set up the next score when a high snap caused a 24-yard loss on a punt attempt, giving the Riders the ball at the 22. It took just one play for Ludolph to hit Luca Shane with a screen pass that made it 21-0.

Martins Ferry possessed the ball only twice in the second quarter, but thanks to a pick-six scored three more times.

The longest drive of the half, 11 plays, 63-yards, was finished off by a 10-yard Ludolph run before the Purple Riders added another score with 45 seconds showing in the half when Ludolph found classmate Alex Reese from 17 yards out.

Berne Union chose to try to move the ball with time running down, however, Williams stepped in front of a Jarett Thompson pass at his own 44 and raced 56 yards with nine ticks to go to push the margin to 42-0.

Martins Ferry finished the first half with 308 total yards of offense and 16 first downs while the Rockets had just 20 yards and offense and two stick-movers.

The Riders’ only score of the second half came on a 10-yard burst by junior Cole Patterson in the fourth quarter. Colby Kropka hit Nate Waseman for the deuce to make it 50-0. Berne Union dented the scoreboard with 3:40 to go on a Bradley Lawrence six-yard run followed by Clayton Moore’s PAT. It was the first points allowed by the Ferry defense in three games.

“A lot of teams go back-and-forth defending us, but they wanted to load the box (Friday), which is understandable how we have been running the football, but we can throw it as well,” Kropka added.

“Ayden Ludolph is one of the most underrated players I have ever coached. You don’t always see his contributions in the stats, but I can assure you that he saves us from a lot of negative plays. He had some great reads (Friday) but the best thing about him is that he is always happy with his teammates when they do well, and he is very unselfish.

We are 6-1 right now and I can’t complain, I am very happy at where we are sitting.”

Martins Ferry finished with 368 total yards of offense, limiting the Rockets to just 89. The Purple Riders had six different players score offensive touchdowns on the night.