ASHLAND — An ugly first quarter may have been the spark for a brilliant second quarter.
Whatever the primer, the defending national champion Ashland University women’s basketball team utilized a 19-4 spurt in the second period to tame Thomas More 67-56 on Friday night at Kates Gymnasium.
“It was a hard-fought win,” said AU coach Kari Pickens. “Thomas More, I think, is an exceptionally well-coached team. They came out and pushed us to our limit, and I thought our team responded really well.”
No. 1-ranked Ashland’s victory marked its third conquest of Thomas More, and ended the Saints’ season at 18-11.
The win also gives the Eagles (29-1) a spot in the Great Midwest Athletic Conference title tilt Saturday at 3 p.m. vs. Trevecca Nazarene (19-10).
Erin Daniels, AU’s fifth-year guard, said defensive intensity was a focus for the squad.
The Eagles held the Saints to 6-of-25 shooting 2-of-11 behind the arc( in the first half. Pickens’ bunch also pocketed 22 points off of turnovers.
“When we get stops on defense, that’s when we really score in transition, and we were getting stops on defense and it was translating,” Daniels said. “We just came locked in.”
The bench was crucial for AU, which got a whopping 41 points from the sub squad.
Back-and-forth
Thomas More roared out to a 9-2 start and wound up with a 14-8 edge in the period.
But then the Eagles found their stride. Daniels hit a 3-pointer to give Ashland its first edge at 15-14, and the AU defense did the rest, allowing just four points in the quarter.
Offensively, AU drained 4-of-7 treys inthe second quarter, with Daniels, Annie Roshak, Savaya Brockington and Morgan Yoder all contributing.
AU ended the half with a 27-18 advantage, and carried that momentum through the third quarter for a 40-26 margin. The Saints sliced the gap to single digits in the second half of the third quarter, and entering the fourth period trailing 45-38.
Things got interesting when Thomas More netted the first five points of the quarter to close to within 45-43.
But behind Daniels and Brockington, AU pulled away. Daniels (who finished with 14 points) hit her fourth triple of the night to push AU’s lead to 52-45.
Brockington, a senior point guard guard who tallied a game-high 18 points, went 7-for-10 at the free throw line to maintain that gap to the end.
“One of the things that we pride ourselves on is stepping up to the free throw line and shooting them with confidence,” Brockington said. “Just step up there and knock them down.”
Pickens said basketball is a game of momentum, and Friday’s back-and-forth game was a testament to that.
“Once we were able to get a big stop and a score, I thought that we were gonna be able to put more together, but it’s tournament time,” Pickens said. “We’re gonna get everyone’s best effort, and we got that in Thomas More today — ton of credit to them.”