Twenty years of coaching, 15 appearances in the GLIAC tournament, a 44-game home winning streak and 360 wins as the Ashland University women’s basketball head coach. Sue Ramsey, who was honored before the start of AU’s 81-61 win against Ohio Dominican, has left quite the legacy during her time at AU.

“I’m honored and humble and grateful for the fans that were here, for the program itself…and the people that came to be here tonight,” Ramsey said.

Once the ceremony concluded, though, it was time for the Eagles to get to work against a fast start from the ODU Panthers. They jumped out to a 12-6 lead over the Eagles, led by strong starts from forwards Jackie Oestreich and Melissa Scherpenberg, who had six and four points, respectively, in the first five minutes.

It was the largest lead the Panthers possessed, and it wouldn’t last long.

Freshman forward Andi Daugherty scored on a post move before the media timeout, starting an 8-0 run for the Eagles.

The lead would switch hands several times throughout the next 10 minutes, until a key steal from senior guard Taylor Woods started a fast break, which led to a Laina Snyder lay-up off an impressive Woods pass from near half court. This tied the game at 21, and started a 9-0 run that saw the Eagles take the lead for good.

The Eagles took a seven-point lead into halftime, and opened the half with a 10-2 run that put the lead into double digits for the rest of the night.

Woods finished the game with 23 points, including hitting six of eight shots from from beyond the three-point line. This puts her fifth on the all-time scoring list with 1,382 career points. She also added seven rebounds, four assists and five steals.

“She is playing like you hope your senior co-captain plays down the stretch her senior year,” Ramsey said. “She has a level of toughness about her now, a mental toughness, a physical toughness that’s just outstanding…I thought her defense was tremendous tonight.”

The Eagles came into the game leading the GLIAC in defensive field-goal percentage, a trend that continued tonight. The Panthers shot 37.7 percent from the field, including 31.3 percent shooting from deep. Only Scherpenberg (8-13 shooting, 19 points) shot above 50 percent from the field individually.

“She’s extremely talented and a very mobile post player,” Ramsey said. “Every time she got deep seals on us we needed to work hard to get around it”

Snyder and Daugherty continued their strong freshman seasons. Snyder had 14 points to go along with five rebounds, two assists and four steals, and Daugherty had 15 points, nine rebounds, two assists, a block and a steal.

“We depend upon them,” Ramsey said. “They don’t let us down…there’s times they’ll still be freshmen out there, which is OK, but what they’re able to do athletically, their defense is just amazing to me.”

The Eagles will play their last regular season home game Saturday against Tiffin, where they will honor Taylor Woods, the team’s lone senior.