It was the perfect ending to a nearly perfect night for Ashland’s Lindsay Tenyak when she dribbled out the clock on a 76-56 victory over Northern Michigan in quarterfinal round of the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference tournament. 

The junior guard finished with a team-high 23 points, going seven of eight from behind the arc and eight of nine from the field. As the clock wound down on the Eagles’ 26th straight victory, she bounced the ball just behind half court to a standing ovation from the 1,050 fans in Kates Gymnasium.

“I wouldn’t get those shots if it weren’t for my teammates,” Tenyak said. “Kari and Ashley working so hard inside and everyone looking at them, that opens up the perimeter for Alyssa, Jena and I. Alyssa and the rest of our guards did a good job of finding me open in the corner.”

Guard Alyssa Miller and forward Ashley Dorner got it going early. The sophomores scored the first 11 points for the Eagles and forced Northern Michigan to call a timeout less than four minutes into the game with Ashland up 11-4.

Miller finished with 18 points, six assists and four rebounds and Dorner had 10 points and three rebounds.

Chelsea Lyons kept the Wildcats within striking distance for most of the first half, scoring 19 points in the opening period on her way to 29 points and five rebounds.

After NMU cut the Eagles’ lead to 23-19 with just under nine minutes to go, junior guard Kaci Finfrock came off the bench and hit a 3-pointer to stop an 11-2 run by the Wildcats. The shot ignited Ashland, which shot 63.3 percent (19 of 30) from the field in the first half.

The Eagles cooled down in the second half, but still finished at a sizzling 50.9 percent (28 of 55) from the field. The Wildcats were very physical down low, but it was to no avail as the Eagles continued to knock shots down from the outside.

Junior forward Kari Daugherty, who spent most of the night chasing around Lyons on defense and dealing with multiple NMU defenders on offense, had yet another double-double with 12 points and 18 rebounds. Senior guard Jena Stutzman finished with seven points and seven assists.

It was a total team win for AU, which has been the theme for its season.

“No one can really stop everybody,” Miller said. “That’s what’s so good about our team is everybody has a knack for shooting and everybody knows how to play team basketball.”

Ashland will host its first GLIAC Final Four this weekend. Waiting for the Eagles on Saturday is a hungry Michigan Tech team, which came into Kates Feb. 18 and lost 63-62.

“It’s definitely a really good game for us right now in our season,” Miller said. “We need this big of a hype, we need this big of a game to see where we’re at.”

Saturday’s game will be for a spot in the GLIAC championship game and it is a rematch of last year’s GLIAC final, in which the Huskies beat the Eagles 63-53.

“The last thing we said in the locker room was, ‘That’s who we want, that’s exactly who we want to play,’” head coach Sue Ramsey said.