While most Ashland students spent their winter break relaxing, watching movies, opening Christmas presents and avoiding productivity at all costs, Ashland’s men’s basketball team spent the majority of it on campus doing the opposite. The Eagles practiced every day, sometimes twice.

This is one group of guys that seems to be following through on its New Year’s resolution. That resolution: to get better at basketball every day. Never did it show more than in Ashland’s first game of the new year, a 94-80 upset of no. 17 Findlay Jan. 5.

And in no one was the improvement more evident than in 5-foot-11-inch junior point guard Ronnie Steward. The transfer from Akron, in his second year playing for AU, dropped 31 points on the rival Oilers. He finished a steamy six of nine from the field and drilled 16 of 17 free throws.

In the Eagles’ next game, against Urbana, Steward had 15 points, going five-for-nine from the field and five-for-five from the foul line, and was promptly named the GLIAC South Player of the Week.

Steward was quick to credit his teammates, especially 6-foot-6-inch center Evan Yates, for allowing him to win the award.

“It’s a big honor, but it’s a team honor as well,” Steward said. “I wouldn’t be able to accomplish that without my teammates and without the big fella down low putting me in position to make plays.”

The lightning-quick Steward has shown constant improvement since arriving on campus, and this year his numbers have skyrocketed. Most notably, he has gone from being an average 3-point shooter (32.4 percent in 2010) to this year being the top marksman in the conference at 48.5 percent as of Tuesday.

His free throw percentage, already excellent (83.3 percent a year ago), has risen to the top of the conference as well, at 92.9 percent. For Steward, the transition from Division I Akron has been seamless.

“It’s been really good,” he said. “Last year it was really new to me, really fresh. I think I’m starting to get really comfortable now, more than I was last year, with our offense and with school and just getting adjusted and talking to more people and making more friends.”

While Steward’s improvement has been steady, it’s been Yates who has been receiving most of the headlines this year. The junior center is leading the team with 21 points and 12.3 rebounds per game. With his performance against Findlay, Steward showed that Yates isn’t the only one who can score for the Eagles.

“When you’ve got a guy down low that’s averaging those kinds of numbers, it comes with the territory,” Steward said. “Not for just me to be aggressive, but for Jordan Berlin to be aggressive and we’ve seen flashes of greatness from Dawuan Thomas as of late. We all have confidence on the perimeter that we can make plays and it’s like Christmas when they double down on the big guy for us.”

The win over Findlay was a huge one for the program. It was the first time that the Eagles had beaten the Oilers in eight games, a streak that spanned almost four seasons.

“We wanted to make it a rivalry game again,” Steward said. “I think that the way you make it a rivalry again is by beating those guys and lately we haven’t been beating them. That was the motivation for me during that week.”

The win was also a spark for a team that was hovering around .500. Since losing 77-64 to Northwood to fall to 5-6, the Eagles have reeled off five straight wins, including three since the big win over Findlay, by an average of 12.6 points.

“It was definitely a boost of confidence for our team and for the university as a whole,” Steward said. “If you walk around campus now people are excited to see us play, they’re excited to hear that we beat Findlay and the town is excited.

“I think it is definitely a momentum and a confidence boost for us to keep improving and just to let us know that we can get better every day and we can be one of the better teams in the league.”

With three players averaging in double figures, including Yates, Steward (13.9) and sophomore forward Will Evans (11.6), as well as the emergence of redshirt freshman guard Dawuan Thomas (15 ppg since being added to the starting lineup Dec. 30), a trip to the GLIAC tournament in March is within reach.