The Ashland men’s basketball team was able to score in bunches in its past two games. 

But it turns out that their opponents were able to score a little bit more.

AU fell to Walsh and Malone this past weekend despite scoring above its season scoring average in both contests.

Head coach John Ellenwood says there is a simple explanation for losing those games. Ashland’s team defense was poor.

“We need to get tougher on the defensive end of the floor,” Ellenwood said. 

In addition, some mental mistakes resulted in turnovers that cost the Eagles some valuable possessions in the high scoring affairs. The Eagles turned the ball over 29 times in both games combined. 

“We had some travels,” Ellenwood said, “which are just a lack of being focused. The majority of our turnovers were just not being focused.”

January 16, Vs. Walsh 78-82

The Walsh Cavaliers were able to hold off the Eagles on Thursday with a four-point victory at Kate’s Gymnasium. 

Walsh (11-3, 7-3) had to make a comeback after trailing at the halfway mark 43-38. AU finished the last 7:06 of the first half on a 19-6 run. Ashland junior guard Brook Turson had nine points during the run and finished with a team-high 19 for the game. 

The Cavaliers would come out firing in second half, especially from 3-point range. They hit seven 3-pointers to pull ahead of the Eagles. As a team, Walsh shot 13 of 24 (54.2 percent) from behind the arc.

Hrvoje Vucic and Jesse Hardin were the main contributors to Walsh’s good shooting. Vucic was 8 of 13 from the field, including 4 of 5 from deep, and finished with 22 points and 10 rebounds. 

Hardin made five 3-pointers and finished with a game-high 23 points.  Hardin also made the final two free throws for Walsh with four seconds remaining to give them the four-point advantage.

Wendell Davis added 17 points and five boards off the bench for Ashland. 

January 18, Vs. Malone 81-95

Ashland struggled with Malone’s guard combination as they fell to the Pioneers by 14 on Saturday at Kate’s Gymnasium.

The 14-point differential at the end doesn’t portray how closely the game was played until the final minutes, but nonetheless, Ellenwood thought that the Pioneers (7-7, 5-5) were more prepared to play than the Eagles.

“They wanted it a little bit more than we did,” Ellenwood said. “We couldn’t make the stops when we needed to.”

Malone’s guard combination of Christian Graves and Isaiah Elliott did a lot of the work offensively for Malone and were thorns in the Eagles’ sides. 

Graves had a game-high 28 points on 9 of 15 shooting, including 4 of 5 from beyond the arc. 

Elliott scored 16 of his 25 points the second half to close out AU. 

Will Evans and Brook Turson both led AU with 17 points apiece, but the Eagles got their spark from Davis off the bench. Davis had 14 points, including a stretch of three baskets in the second half where he and Elliot were trading baskets on each end. 

“Wendell had a mismatch on him,” Ellenwood said. “He did a great job of being strong. As a freshmen, that makes me pretty happy to see that.”

Ashland was down 65-46 before going on a 13-point run to pull within four.

That’s when Christain Graves hit perhaps his biggest 3-pointer of the day to extend Malone’s lead back to seven. From there, the Pioneers didn’t look back. 

“Graves did a good job of setting his feet,” Ellenwood said. “He’s a great shooter. We didn’t do a great job recognizing that at times.” 

This game was particularly important for both squads in terms of GLIAC playoff aspirations. Malone and AU were fifth and sixth respectively in the GLIAC South with hopes of making a late season run to get into the tournament.

With the loss, Ashland’s road to the tournament is now much more difficult.

“I feel like there was some playoff emotion in that game,” Ellenwood said. “I don’t think our guys quit which is a positive to take out of this game. 

“If we can play tough and aggressive on both ends of the floor, I think we’re a pretty good team. We need to play a little bit more like that from now on.”

Ashland (6-8, 3-7) will be on the road this week. They will play at Findlay on Thursday and then at Hillsdale on Saturday.