The Ashland University men’s basketball team (1-0, 0-0) opened its season against Lourdes (3-4) Tuesday night at Kates Gymnasium. The men, who played at 5:30 because of the Title IX change, defeated the Gray Wolves, 80-70 capturing the first win of the season for AU.

Evan Yates got the Eagles started, scoring the first seven points of the game.

“He was perfect from the field and he made free throws when it counted,” head coach John Ellenwood said. “And the thing tonight, is that he did it on a bad foot. He played through some pain and got a double-double.”

For the game, Yates was 5-for-5 from the field and 7-of-11 from the free-throw stripe. Yates led AU with 17 points in twenty two minutes of work.

After Yates got the Eagles started, AU rolled to a 21-4 lead halfway through the first half. Kale Richardson continued where Yates left off shooting 2-for-3 from behind the arc in the first half. Lourdes chose to go with the zone defense and Ashland shot right over it.

For Lourdes, Joe Davis was held to just 8 points in the first half. For the game, Davis led all scorers with 27 points.

At halftime the Eagles had a 33-22 lead. The stat sheet showed almost identical numbers for both teams except in the second-chance-points category. Lourdes converted four points on second chance attempts compared to AU’s 11 points. Both teams only had two fast break points apiece as the game was played almost entirely in the half court.

“We were sloppy with the ball. In the first games we have no idea what teams are going to do because we don’t have film on the m yet,” Ellenwood said. “We knew they were going to press us. We were very sloppy with the ball and I’ll give them credit for that.”

The Gray Wolves continued their comeback in the second half thanks to a tough full-court press after making a basket. With only 44 seconds left, Ashland had let its lead dwindle down to eight points. Time was on Ashland’s side as they were able to hang on for the ten point victory.

The Ashland bench showed up for the second half while the Lourdes bench was nonexistent. AU put up 35 points in the second half from the bench compared to Lourdes’ 1 second half bench points. For the game, the Ashland bench contributed 45 points compared to 23. The other deciding factor was the points in the paint. The knowledgeable Ashland big men were fundamentally sound against a defense that was simply not up to par. This season is the first for men’s basketball in school history. Ashland earned 38 points in the paint against the Gray Wolves 32.

For the game, Yates led all players with nine rebounds while Richardson recorded eight of his own. Jordan Berlin had three steals, two behind Lourdes’ John Willhite. Blake Saunders led everyone with two blocks.

The glaring sore in the opening game for the Eagles would have to be the free throw shooting. AU shot just six free throws in the first half. In the second half, Ashland went to the charity stripe 42 times but only made 27 free throws.

Ashland shot 50.0 percent from the field and 36.8 percent from three land.

After the game, Ellenwood was just happy to get the win and get the season started.

“It feels good to get the first one out of the way.”

The next game for AU is at Millersville Saturday Nov. 20.