On Saturday, Feb. 15, the Ashland Women’s Basketball team traveled to Tiffin to play a struggling Dragons team that only had three wins in the Great Midwest Athletic Conference (G-MAC).
Ashland won 17 in a row before Saturday and looked to make it 18 at Tiffin. The game started out with an early five-point, 7-2 lead for the Eagles less than three minutes into the game. Then Tiffin came from behind and went on a 15-2 run to have an eight-point lead with 3:13 to play in the first quarter. Ashland would crawl back before the quarter ended and only trailed by two at 19-17.
Tiffin wouldn’t let the Eagles get close for too long though, they went on a 10-0 run to open the quarter and Ashland wouldn’t score for almost the first four minutes of the quarter. The Eagles would then go on their own 10-0 run and cut the lead to just two with 3:39 to play in the half. Tiffin would outplay Ashland and head to the locker room with a 37-29 lead over the No. 8 team in the nation.
The third quarter didn’t have as many runs as the first half did, as it was very back and forth but Tiffin continued to hold a large lead of at least eight through most of the quarter. Tiffin even held a 14-point lead with less than four minutes to go in the third. Ashland ended the quarter strong and only trailed 51-45 entering the fourth.
Ashland still hadn’t held a lead since the Dragons took it from them in the first quarter and they could smell blood in the water in the fourth quarter. The Eagles were able to keep their deficit to single digits and were only down by four points with less than four minutes in the game when freshman guard, Ashley Mullet, hit back-to-back threes to take a 63-61 lead. Ashland wouldn’t give the lead back and got the comeback win 69-63.
Senior forward, Zoe Miller, had a career game scoring 33 points, including 10 in the fourth quarter, with 10 rebounds to secure the double double. Ashland wins their 18th straight game and hold a strong two-and-a-half in first place of the G-MAC, and they are in a great position to win the league with only three games to play.
Ashland will play Cedarville in their next game on Thursday, Feb. 20 with tipoff set for 5:30 at Kate’s Gymnasium.
