Daiva Gerbec and Taylor Woods looked like they were making up for lost time, and in a way they were.

The pair of Ashland starters who missed last year’s magical run to the national championship game left nothing to chance in the Eagles’ first postseason game of 2013, a 68-35 win over Northern Michigan in the first round of the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference tournament.

Gerbec scored 10 of Ashland’s first 12 points and finished with a game-high 21 points and four rebounds.

“I remember how exciting it was last year and just how much I wanted to be a part of it,” she said. “I was kind of reflecting on that a little bit before the game and I just couldn’t have been more excited to play.”

Woods was active on both ends from the opening tip. She had nine points, five rebounds, four assists and two steals in the first half and finished with 12 points, six rebounds and a team-high six assists.

Northern Michigan (13-14, 10-12) focused on defending National Player of the Year Kari Daugherty, who saw double and triple teams all night and did not even attempt a shot in the first seven minutes.

“It was (NMU’s Maria Almquist) and then it was swarming,” AU head coach Sue Ramsey said. “When she did catch it she was swarmed.”

Daugherty still managed to rack up a double-double with 11 points, 10 rebounds and three assists, but seven of those points came in the second half.

Junior guard Alyssa Miller did her best to pick up the slack. She was super-efficient, going 5 of 8 from the field with 18 points, eight rebounds and three assists while turning the ball over just once.

“We were hitting the open player and this year my role is to knock down shots,” Miller said. “I’m a lot more comfortable with my shot this year and so I think when it’s my turn to shoot it I know that to benefit the team I need to hit those shots.”

Efficiency was the word of the day for the Eagles, who racked up 17 assists to just six turnovers. At halftime, the leading team in the nation in assist-turnover ratio (1.43) had 10 assists and two giveaways.

Ashland shot above its nation-leading average (47.6 percent) from the field in the first half, knocking down 16 of 30 shots (53.3 percent). Gerbec’s hot start from inside was a big part of that, and the Eagles led the Wildcats 16-8 in points in the paint in the field. They finished with a 28-12 advantage in that category.

They also forced the Wildcats into 17 turnovers and converted those into 15 points on the other end.

“That’s one of the best defensive performances we’ve had in a long time for 40 minutes,” Ramsey said.

The 35 points Northern Michigan scored was the fewest total any team has put up on Ashland in Ramsey’s 18-year tenure. No player scored in double figures for the Wildcats, and Alyssa Colla and Lauren Gruber came the closest with eight points apiece.

For the game, NMU was held to 26.5 percent (13 of 49) shooting. The Eagles cooled down in the first half but still managed to shoot 44.3 percent (27 of 61).

The win means that Ashland will host the GLIAC semifinals on Saturday as well as the championship on Sunday. The Eagles will play Michigan Tech—which beat Grand Valley State on Wednesday—in the first semifinal at 2 p.m. That will be followed by Findlay versus Wayne State at 4 p.m.