The Ashland men’s basketball team was in action this past week against two of the GLIAC’s premier teams, Grand Valley State and Ferris State. The Eagles split the games, beating No. 22 GVSU 82-75 Thursday in a game that could be seen on tape delay on SportsTime Ohio (STO) but falling Saturday to North Division leaders Ferris State, 83-67.

 

No. 22 Grand Valley State

Playing on STO lifted the Eagles above a ranked opponent for the second time this season as Ashland started the game on a 10-0 run and never looked back.

“It’s big for the university,” Eagles’ coach John Ellenwood said of the game being broadcast on STO. “Good publicity for the school, big publicity for the program and against a ranked opponent, so anytime that can happen, we’re pretty excited about it.”

AU was led by their big men, sophomore center Evan Yates and senior forward Kale Richardson. Each recorded a double-double in the game, with Yates going for 20 points and 10 rebounds alongside Richardson’s 22 points and 10 boards.

The game’s most exciting play came with just under two minutes left in the first half when junior forward Antoine Childs grabbed a lob-pass from freshman guard Jordan Berlin and threw it down for an alley-oop dunk.

“When we got the alley-oop, that was basically saying [to the other team], ‘Hey, we just went over the top of your zone,” Ellenwood said. “That was important because they didn’t go back to the zone for the rest of the game after that, which was big for us.”

Zone or no zone, Ashland led from the opening tip until the final whistle, but did have to withstand a number of Laker runs that threatened to shift the momentum. The Lakers’ last stand came in the final two minutes as they whittled a 15-point AU advantage all the way down to four before a pair of Richardson free-throws iced the Eagle victory.

GVSU’s Justin Ringler finished with 27 points, making him the leading scorer of the contest despite the loss.

Ferris State

Ashland faced the national preseason player of the year Saturday in Ferris State’s Justin Keenan, but it was the shooting by his teammates that doomed the Eagles in the 16-point loss. The Bulldogs shot 9-20 (45 percent) from deep compared to AU’s horrendous 2-17 (11.8 percent) performance.

Yates got the assignment of guarding Keenan and played adequately on the offensive end as well, pumping in 17 points to lead the team. Richardson finished close behind with 16.

The Eagles were undone by superb outside shooting and a killer 15-0 run by the Bulldogs in the middle part of the second half. Fatigue on the side of AU was obvious from the outset.

“I think we were a little drained,” Ellenwood said. “We have a lot of young guys playing a lot of minutes, and they’re not used to [the college game]. Coming off the high of a great win, we just didn’t respond real well. We needed a better effort than the one we had on Saturday.”

Ashland will now take to the road as they head up north to face Michigan Tech Thursday and Northern Michigan Saturday in GLIAC action. The Eagles are now 12-10 overall and 6-9 in the conference, which puts them at fourth in the South Division and ninth overall, one game behind Michigan Tech and Saginaw Valley State for the last spot in the conference tournament.

According to Ellenwood, Ashland’s success this week depends on their effort on the defensive end of the floor.

“First and foremost, we’ve got to sit down and play some ‘D’,” he said. “Each game [this week] is huge for us, but everything starts for us defensively. If we do that, then usually that will lead to some missed shots and easy offense.”