The Ashland Men’s Basketball team traveled to take on the No. 9 ranked Findlay Oilers Thursday night of Jan. 16. 

Ashland knew they had their hands full with taking on a top ten team in a hostile environment, but they were up to the task in the early parts of the game. It was back and forth in the first few minutes and Ashland even found itself in the lead 8-7 only four minutes into the game. Findlay would take back the lead quickly, but they couldn’t shake the Eagles. 

Ashland would retake the lead, 21-20, with a layup by redshirt sophomore wing Cooper Davis with 8:53 remaining in the half. Both squads would trade basket after basket with Ashland being lucky to have graduate student Luke Metzger bury a three-pointer to finish the half down 41-40. The Eagles would head into the locker room feeling optimistic only being down by one point to a top team in the nation. 

Ashland came out swinging in the second half taking back the lead 45-44 less than three minutes into the half. They would keep up with the Oilers, not trailing by more than 8 for the next 6 minutes.  

Then Findlay’s lead started to grow into the double digits by the ten-minute mark of the half and they wouldn’t give the lead back to the Eagles for the rest of the contest. However, Ashland would cut the lead to four points in a 75-71 score with 6:04 remaining. But Findlay would finish the game on a 20-6 run to put the Eagles away for good. 

Ashland’s leading scorer was Jaron Crews with 20 points on a perfect shooting night going 7-7 from the field. Davis followed Crews with 17 points and 2 made threes. Finally, star center, Maceo Williams, struggled going 5-12 from the field with 12 points. 

Ashland goes to 9-7 overall and 5-4 in Great Midwest Athletic play while Findlay improves to 15-1 and 8-0 in the conference.  

Ashland looks to bounce back from the loss with a win at Ohio Dominican Tuesday Jan. 21.