The Ashland women’s basketball team had a good look about it before Friday’s NCAA Midwest Regional Tournament quarterfinal against Maryville even started. In warm-ups, 18 minutes before the opening tip, the team’s shots were flying into the hoop faster than the net could handle. The Eagles made three shots at the same time, causing all three balls to get stuck.

It didn’t carry over to the opening minutes however, as the Eagles missed their first four field goal attempts and allowed the Saints to jump out to a 5-2 lead after three minutes.

“I understand why they missed shots,” head coach Sue Ramsey said, referring to the tournament atmosphere. “It’s an excitement, it’s a little bit of the jitters and that’s ok, because I know they won’t stop shooting it.”

Over the next seven minutes, Ashland went on a 21-0 run and never looked back, cruising to an 87-62 victory over the Great Lakes Valley Conference tournament champions.

“We always say defense and rebounding is going to win us games, and I think once we did start playing good half court defense our offense started to flow,” senior guard Jena Stutzman said.

The Eagles held Maryville to 10 of 34 shooting and went into halftime with a 47-25 advantage behind 15 points from Stutzman and 15 points and nine rebounds from junior forward Kari Daugherty.

Stutzman got going late in the first half, hitting a 3-pointer with just over five minutes to play and then using a behind-the-back crossover move to create space and drain a pull up jumper. In all, she made five 3-pointers and finished with a game-high 29 points and five rebounds.

“They can’t really help off Kari and they weren’t leaving our guards in the corners so that opened some driving lanes,” Stutzman said. “I just felt like the pull up jumper was there tonight so I just took open shots.”

Daugherty ended up with 23 points and 11 rebounds. It was her 22nd double double of the season. Sophomore forward Ashley Dorner added 17 points on 8 of 13 shooting.

“We just play,” Dorner said. “We have confidence. It’s not anything set up, we play off each other. That’s what makes it so fun.”

Junior guard Kaci Finfrock scored nine points in 12 minutes and sophomore guard Alyssa Miller, who started but did not score until there was 15:22 remaining in the second half, finished with two points, five assists, six rebounds, four blocks and two steals.

Ashland shot an even 50 percent (18 of 36) from the field, 36.8 percent (seven of 19) from 3-point range and 75 percent (15 of 20) from the foul line.

Maryville guard Shelby Miller, the Freshman of the Year in the GLVC, came into the game averaging 13 points per game but was plagued by illness and did not start. She played nine minutes and did not score.

“She was a skeleton of herself,” Maryville head coach Chris Ellis said “I’m not saying it’s a different game if she plays, but certainly from a psychological factor it had had to weigh on our kids a little bit.”

The Saints’ leading scorer, forward Abby Duethman (15.7 ppg) was held to four points and seven rebounds.

In the other three games played in Kates Friday, Wisconsin-Parkside (73-66 over Indianapolis), Ferris State (74-56 over Drury) and Quincy (75-65 over Northern Kentucky) won and advanced to play Saturday. Wisconsin-Parkside and Ferris State will square off at 5 p.m. before Ashland takes the floor to play Quincy at 7:30.