ASHLAND – On the biggest stages in sports, sometimes the spotlight shines on more than just the main attractions.
Hosting Hillsdale College for the Great Midwest Athletic Conference Tournament title Saturday, Ashland University watched bench players Sarah McKee and Ashley Mullet land the biggest punches.
The game featured 11 lead changes and saw the Chargers ahead 55-53 nearly halfway through the fourth quarter, but it was McKee and Mullet stoically steering the Eagles to a 69-57 victory.
(Photos by Tom Theodore)
Fifth-ranked Ashland (30-3) stretched its win streak to 24 games and won the G-MAC crown for the fourth consecutive season (now 11-0 all-time in G-MAC Tournament games) in front of 1,092 fans at Kates Gymnasium.
The Eagles outscored Hillsdale (21-9) by a 16-2 count in the final 5:17, as Mullet went 8-for-8 from the free-throw line in the fourth quarter and finished with a season-high 16 points.
It was just the second time all year she led the team in scoring.
“We say this tournament is the start of a new season,” said Mullet, a freshman guard from Hiland High School who shot just 26 free throws in her college career before Saturday. “I’m still technically a freshman but I’ve got a whole season of experience, so I just try to go out and play like I know I can.”
“Ashley is just such a consistent and steady presence,” Ashland head coach Kari Pickens said, “so I have all the confidence in the world when she steps to the free-throw line because she doesn’t get rattled by things.”
McKee, meanwhile, had what she said was her best game all season, totaling 14 critical points and six rebounds while stepping in for fellow senior post Hayley Smith.
Smith entered the day as one of the best rebounders in the nation and needed just 10 boards for 1,000 in her career. But she picked up her third foul with more than three minutes to play in the first half and ended up with 10 points and five rebounds in just 19 minutes on the floor.
McKee hit all six of her shots from the field and helped keep the Eagles close with the Chargers, who led 34-24 before Ashland forward Zoe Miller beat the halftime buzzer with a banked-in 3-pointer.
“We knew Hillsdale was coming in hot and they had a good last stretch of the season and we knew they were a good team,” McKee said. “But we know we’re the best team in the G-MAC, so we had to come back out (after halftime) and play like it.”
McKee and Mullet outscored the Hillsdale bench 30-6 by themselves, and it was good that they did.
The Chargers scored the first eight points of the game and the first 10 of the second quarter while committing only three turnovers in the first half, handing AU just its sixth halftime deficit of the season.
Senior guard Caitlin Splain had 15 of her game-high 23 points in the first 12 minutes. An Olentangy Liberty High School graduate, she broke Hillsdale’s record for career 3-pointers this season and had the Ashland faithful feeling plenty nervous Saturday.
“She’s an incredible kid,” second-year Hillsdale head coach Brianna Brennan said. “She came in as a walk-on for us and worked her butt off all four years she’s been here.”
“Not a single player on our roster has even won a tournament game in their four years, not even our seniors,” the coach added, “so to walk into this tournament and compete and play with so much poise was just really fun to watch.”
The Chargers hadn’t appeared in a conference tournament title game since 2018. But after a 70-59 loss Jan. 23 at Ashland, they ripped off a 10-2 record to put themselves into position for a potential NCAA Tournament berth entering Saturday.
Hillsdale senior and G-MAC first-team guard Lauren McDonald (11 points, 9 rebounds, 4 assists) was one of multiple Chargers to drop in high-difficulty buckets inside the lane in the second half.
Guard Kendall McCormick (9 points, 8 rebounds) also nearly had a double-double for the visitors, who were 19-of-45 from the field (42 percent) through three quarters against one of the best defenses in the nation.
“They fight, they never go away, they’re super steady and consistent, and they have some really special players,” Pickens said. “They just have weapons that can score at any moment and I don’t think we did a good job of defending them in the first half.”
But after a 10-0 run in the third quarter that included 3-pointers from Mullet and Morgan Yoder (9 points, 5 rebounds, 4 assists), the Eagles led 37-36.
They didn’t trail by more than three at any point the rest of the way, and it seemed as though AU’s championship pedigree finally wore down the Chargers in the fourth.
Hillsdale was just 3-for-15 from the floor in the final quarter and missed all eight of its 3-point tries in the second half after hitting 4-of-7 before halftime.
Mullet’s magic from the free-throw line sealed it down the stretch. The Eagles pushed their home winning streak to 30 games and collected their ninth league tournament title in the last 10 years.
“Going from a semifinal (Friday) to a championship game (Saturday), you don’t have much time to prepare, and it had been a while since we had seen them,” Brennan said. “The girls really executed the game plan the best they could.”
The coach said she thinks Hillsdale’s semifinal win over Malone could be enough to put her squad into the NCAA Tournament when the Division II bracket is unveiled late Sunday night.
Ashland and Pickens, meanwhile, are locks for their 11th consecutive Midwest Regional Tournament after collecting 30 wins for the ninth time since 2011-12.
Miller, the G-MAC Player of the Year, finished Saturday with nine points and 12 rebounds while teammate Lexi Howe chipped in 11 points.
Pickens said McKee’s effort off the bench was critical.
“Sarah has played with All-American post players her entire career,” the coach said. “She’s a really special player in her own right, but she sometimes doesn’t get as many opportunities as others.
“Tonight, she was ready, she hit some huge buckets and got some big boards for us down the stretch.
“We’ve been down so many times going into the fourth and we just keep fighting. I do think that being so battle-tested is going to help us.”
Unfortunately for the Eagles, Saturday’s game was the home finale for the season.
It’s a foregone conclusion that second-ranked Grand Valley State (31-2) will host the Midwest Regional (March 14-17), even if the Lakers lose Sunday to Ferris State in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Tournament championship game.
Grand Valley rolled past Ashland in their meeting Nov. 21 at GVSU, 67-42.
“We wish we had a chance to (host), but we had too many slip-ups in the first half of the season,” Pickens said. “That said, I wouldn’t change a thing about this season because we learned a lot from the early half of the season and we’re feeling really good going into the (NCAA Tournament).
“We’re just ready to start the dancing.”
The Division II NCAA Tournament selection show will be at 10:30 p.m. Sunday on ncaa.com. Ashland likely will be the No. 2 seed and will play its regional quarterfinal game Friday.
Notes
Ashland’s 73-51 semifinal win Friday over Northwood was the 1,500th game and 995th win in program history.
Pickens now is 203-20 in her seven seasons at AU, giving her the best win percentage (.910) of any NCAA women’s basketball coach in history with a minimum of 200 games.
If the Eagles advance out of the Midwest Regional, the Elite Eight (March 24), Final Four (March 26) and national championship (March 28) games will follow in Pittsburgh, Pa.
