The AU men’s basketball team came out strong in the first half of the 2012 GLIAC opener against the Grand Valley Lakers Nov. 29, leading by six points, 29-23, at halftime.

The Eagles extended that lead to as much as eight in the second half, but couldn’t keep up when the Laker defense stepped up late. The Lakers won 66-57 to go to 4-1 (1-0 GLIAC) on the season, while the loss pushed the Eagles back to 1-2 (0-1) for the year.

The game was very close through much of the first half, but the Eagles closed out the first half with four points by senior guard Ronnie Steward in the final 10 seconds.

Steward drove to the bucket with time running out, pushing the score to 27-23. Sophomore guard DaWaun Thomas then stole the ball from Laker Ryan Sabin with 0:05 remaining, and missed the jumper. Junior guard Jordan Berlin picked up the rebound and passed to Steward who made the shot at the buzzer.

The Eagle defense did a great job of keeping the ball away from the Grand Valley hoop in the first half, limiting the Lakers to only six points in the paint. The Eagles also forced 10 turnovers in the half.

The only problem was that they couldn’t convert the turnovers into points. The Eagles scored just seven points off of turnovers in that first half.

Grand Valley’s defense came out with a new look in the second half, switching to zone coverage. Ashland had trouble responding to the switch. As the Eagles passed the ball around more searching for that open shot, the Lakers were able to create seven turnovers in the second half.

Coach John Ellenwood believes that this Laker defense is one of the best that the Eagles will face all season.

“Grand Valley is about as long of a team as we’re going to face,” Ellenwood said. “And they’re able to play that zone very effectively because of that length.”

A stronger defense also opened up new looks for Grand Valley under the basket. They were able to score 16 points in the paint during the second half.

The Lakers worked the game back to a tie at 41-41 with 9:41 remaining in the second half and took the lead off of a free throw by freshman forward Ricardo Carbajal. From that point, the Lakers never looked back.

Free throws were the story of the second half. The Eagles got in foul trouble very early, recording 10 team fouls with 5:31 still remaining in the game. They had only four team fouls in the first half.

Senior forward Evan Yates headed to the bench with 7:28 in the second half after recording his fourth personal foul. At the time, he was Ashland’s leading scorer with nine points, but he couldn’t put another shot in after coming back late in the game.

Yates really struggled to get any kind of momentum throughout the game. He was getting looks underneath the basket and drawing fouls, but he was unable to put the ball in the hoop, going 3-8 from the field and 3-7 from the foul line. He also struggled to pull down boards late, recording only three rebounds in the second half. He had nine total in the game.

With Yates’ troubles, Ashland struggled to find a leader in the game. Junior guard Will Evans led the team in scoring with 11 points, but also led the team with four turnovers.

As a team, the Eagles struggled from the line, making only 6 of their 12 free throws.

“We missed some key free throws, and that hurt us,” Ellenwood said. “We really needed to capitalize.”

Berlin had a strong defensive game with three steals, all in the first half.

Steward also had a good game on the run, ending up with 10 points and five assists.

Sophomore forward Kristers Seidaks led the way for the Lakers with 15 points and eight rebounds.

Ellenwood hopes that his team will learn from how well they played in the first half of this game.

“We played to the plan [in the first half]…and the [team] really bought in,” Ellenwood said. “We need to take the effort we had in the first half and build on that.”

The Eagles play next against Ferris State at Kates Gymnasium on Dec. 1.