Bailey Bretz

@BM_Bretz

The Eagles were off to a great start in the NCAA Division II Women’s Basketball Championship, winning their first two games to advance to the Sweet Sixteen.

Ashland, a five seed in the Midwest region, defeated fourth seeded Southern Indiana in the first round and the region’s top seed, Michigan Tech, in the second round.

In both games, AU came out fighting strong and tried to make it so that their opponent did not have a chance to come back.

Against Southern Indiana, Ashland led at halftime by a score of 44-29. Senior guard Taylor Woods had 17 points at the half and would end up finishing with 24 points to go along with four assists, three rebounds and two steals.

Woods was not the only player with impressive numbers on offense. Junior McKenzie Miller had 15 points, with all of them coming from behind the arc, freshman Andi Daugherty scored 12 points and was perfect at the free throw line and sophomore Suzy Wollenhaupt added 10 points off the bench.

The offense was incredibly efficient shooting at a 53.6 field goal percentage, 61.9 three point percentage and an 88.9 free throw percentage.

Southern Indiana was led by their center, Anna Hackert who posted a double-double, scoring 22 points and grabbing 13 rebounds. Southern Indiana also got production on offense by Tanner Marcum, scoring 13 points, and Mary O’Keefe, 10 points.

The Eagles won the game 81-61 and advanced to the second round, where they faced the number one seed in the midwest region, Michigan Tech.

Ashland was familiar with Michigan Tech, playing them twice earlier in the season, including a few days before the game when they battled for the GLIAC championship. The Huskies won both games, winning the first matchup 63-39 and GLIAC championship 68-52

Unfortunately for the Huskies, they could not pull off a three game sweep.

Once again, AU started the game off strong. This time, the defense was just as dominate as the offense and limited Michigan Tech to a measly 25 shooting percentage. The Eagles were leading at halftime with the score of 49-19.

Woods was leading the team in points scored at both halftime and the game’s end. In fact, Woods outscored the entire Michigan Tech team in the first half by scoring 22 points herself compared to the Huskies’ 19.

One of the big factors of the game’s outcome and part of how AU was able to pull out the upset was rebounding. Ashland out-rebounded Michigan Tech by the wide margin of 42-22. The two freshmen starters for the Eagles, Daugherty and Laina Snyder, were big keys to how this happened.

Both Daugherty and Snyder had double-doubles. Daugherty scored 13 points and had 13 rebounds and Snyder had 14 points to go along with 10 rebounds. The duo actually out-rebounded the Huskies 23-22.

The final score of the game was 70-51.

Unfortunately for the Eagles, they could not reach the Elite Eight and lost tho Lewis 76-83 on Monday. Ashland kept it competitive throughout the game, but Lewis pulled away at the end to give themselves the victory.

AU did come out with some firepower on offense with three players scoring at least fifteen points. Daugherty scored 21 and had 10 rebounds, Snyder had 20 points and grabbed 13 rebounds and Woods, who averaged 23.5 in the first two tournament games, scored 15.

There were two members of Lewis that the Eagles could not figure out how to defend. Redshirt junior Jamie Johnson was the game’s leading scorer with 31 points and junior Mariyah Brawner-Henley scored 30 and grabbed a game high 18 boards.

Ashland finishes the year 25-9, losing in the Sweet Sixteen. Considering the team’s 2-4 start to the year, the Eagles had a fantastic comeback to finish their season.

It was the last game for both the senior Woods and head coach Sue Ramsey, who is retiring. 

     Woods finishes her career with the most three point field goals made in AU history and the third most points in the program’s history.

Ramsey finishes her collegiate coaching career with over 450 wins. More than 350 of those wins came during the 20 years she spent as the head coach of Ashland University.