With junior guard Alyssa Miller forced to sit out the past six games due to injury, the defending national champion Ashland women’s basketball team has faced some adversity of late.

Sitting at 4-1 at the start of Christmas Break, the Eagles (7-5, 5-3 Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference) beat Saginaw Valley State 84-78 on Dec. 16 in their last game with Miller on the floor. Since then, they are 2-4.

Ashland fell to Wayne State 87-78 at home, lost 79-69 at New York Institute of Technology and got beat at Northwood 65-59 before stopping the skid with a 60-57 win at Lake Superior State.

Last weekend, the Eagles had a great opportunity with two of the top teams in the GLIAC North on their home court in No. 24 Northern Michigan and rival Michigan Tech.

No. 24 Northern Michigan 

Playing without Miller and junior starting forward Melanie Poorman, the undersized and youthful Eagles handed Northern Michigan its first blemish in conference play with a 74-60 victory Thursday.

The Wildcats came in atop the conference at 9-1 overall and 8-0 in the GLIAC, but Ashland showed no fear as it used a 10-0 second-half run to pull away and claim a statement win.

“Every hustle play in the second half belonged to the Eagles,” AU head coach Sue Ramsey said.

Junior guard Taylor Woods led all scorers with 26 points, including 16 in the second half. Sophomore McKenzie Miller was also huge, scoring 16 points, grabbing six rebounds and adding three assists as one of just two returning players from last year’s national championship team in uniform.

The teams were neck-and-neck through the entire first half, with Northern Michigan holding the largest lead at 19-14 with 8:12 to play. Despite second-leading scorer and leading rebounder Suzy Wollenhaupt only being on the floor for seven minutes due to foul trouble, the Eagles were level in points and rebounds at the break.

The Eagles made their run right after halftime. Down 33-32 with 17:06 to play, they went on a 10-0 run over the next 4:10. Freshman guard Emma Hostetler started the spurt with a 3-pointer and Woods finished it with back-to-back layups off of steals.

“I thought Taylor Woods played the best game of her career as a leader,” Ramsey said. “That’s a significant factor with our other two co-captains (Alyssa Miller and Poorman) out with injuries.”

The Wildcats never came closer than 10 points from the lead the rest of the way.

Wollenhaupt avoided fouling out and finished with 12 points and eight rebounds. Sophomore Jamie Sobczak had seven points off the bench and freshman Kelsey Peare and Hostetler each had five.

Peare also played a crucial role on the defensive end, holding Northern Michigan’s leading scorer Alyssa Colla to 10 points on 5 of 12 shooting. 

As a team, the Eagles held the Wildcats to 34.5 percent (20 of 58) shooting and forced 19 turnovers. 

“Our girls really dug deep,” Ramsey said. “They were playing for each other, they were playing for the injured ones that couldn’t play and they played Ashland basketball.”

Michigan Tech

Saturday’s game added another page to the tremendous rivalry between Ashland and Michigan Tech. It was also another chance for the Eagles to gain ground on one of the top teams in the GLIAC North.

To make the stage even bigger, CBS Sports Network was at Kates Gymnasium broadcasting the game for the entire country to see. What resulted was a showcase of two of the nation’s top programs, with the Huskies (9-2, 7-0) coming out on top 66-61.

“I was so proud of our team today,” Ramsey said. “This week they’ve grown up and really played some good basketball, played together. It was a great crowd, I really appreciated all the people that came out today and I think they saw some great GLIAC basketball.”

The Eagles hung with their GLIAC North foe, even taking the lead with less than 10 minutes to play, but Danielle Blake was just too much to handle. The Huskies forward had a career-high 32 points and made life difficult on offense for Woods, who finished with 10 points on 3 of 14 shooting.

“We did not have a good matchup for (Blake) today,” Ramsey said. “Our matchup is Alyssa Miller, and I have all the confidence in the world if we see them again in tournament time we’ll have Alyssa and that will be a great matchup.”

Michigan Tech threatened to seize control before halftime up 24-16 with 3:47 left, but AU closed the half on a 10-6 run to make the score 30-26 at the break.

The Eagles scored the first four points of the second half, tying the game for the first time since it was 2-2 with 17:53 left in the first half.

Michigan Tech answered with a 13-4 run to go back up by nine, but AU slowly chipped away and finally took its first lead of the game at 53-52 with 6:25 to play on a layup and-one by freshman guard Rachelle Morrison. 

Then Blake scored nine points and kept Woods of the score sheet the rest of the way as the Huskies closed on a 14-8 run to stay unbeaten in conference.

Poorman, back from the concussion she sat out with on Thursday, led the Eagles with 15 points and eight rebounds. Wollenhaupt had 13 points, six rebounds and three blocks, McKenzie Miller added 12 points and nine rebounds and Woods chipped in 10 points despite her shooting struggles.

No one other than Blake scored in double figures for the Huskies.

Michigan Tech held a slight advantage in field goal percentage (44.8 percent to 42.4 percent), but Ashland was hurt by the fact that it did not make a single 3-pointer (0-5) and the Huskies made four (4-14).

Per usual, the two GLIAC powers were neck-and-neck in the other major statistical categories, including rebounds (35-35), turnovers (12-12), steals (8-8), assists (13-10 in favor of MTU) and team fouls (14 for MTU to 13 for AU).

“When you look at this league, if you want to see big picture, you look at two teams that are actually programs and the two top programs as far as consistency,” Ramsey said. “We have all the respect for Michigan Tech and the type of athletes that they recruit, what they put on the floor. There was a lot of good basketball being played.”