The Ashland Men’s basketball season has come to an end after winning the Great Midwest Athletic Conference Championship and having a final winning record of 22-10 overall,

However, the Eagles fought hard all the way until the last second of the NCAA Regional opening round, where they fell short to old GLIAC rival, Ferris State, in a nail-biting 71-70 loss to end their season. 

A conference title and a chance in the post-season after starting off the season 0-4 shows the amount of grit and determination this team gained throughout the season. 

“Starting the year 0-4 then finishing the year 22-10 as conference champs and earning a 3 seed in the NCAA tournament proved that we definitely improved so much throughout the year,” forward CJ Karsatos said. “This season the thing that I have taken away is to never rest. Our team accomplished so much but learning that you need to continue to work day in and day out after success is something that connects off of the floor as well.”

The Eagles fought hard against the Bulldogs, where they went into halftime down 40-29. Coming into the second half with a dominating offensive end the Eagles outscored the Bulldogs 41- 31. 

Unfortunately, though, they ended up just a point shy of tying it up. 

Leading the scoreboard for the Eagles were freshman guard Simon Wheeler, who had 19 points and 5 rebounds, and forward James Manns who had 15 points and 7 rebounds for the day. 

Senior guard Brandon Haraway had some of his best career games to finish the season, leading the way for the Eagles averaging 17 points per game.

“The tournament championship is something I will look back on forever,” Haraway said.  “I received some individual awards but I wouldn’t have been able to get those without my teammates and the amount of success we had as a team.”

The Eagles had their best season since the program’s 2018-2019 season and now look to the 2023-2024 season.