ASHLAND – Santa Claus might be coming to town in less than a week, but Paxon Ediger didn’t have the patience to wait for the big guy.
With Mansfield Senior visiting Arrow Arena on Friday night, the Ashland senior guard stuffed his scoring stockings to the brim, dropping in a program-record 44 points and forcing his squad past the Tygers, 70-65.
Ediger was electric from start to finish, scoring at least eight points in every quarter, netting 8-of-9 free throws and hitting six shots from downtown.
His 3-pointer from the left wing off a pass from Reed Emmons with 1:52 remaining gave Ashland (3-3, 3-1 Ohio Cardinal Conference) the lead for good at 65-62.
A pair of free throws with 55 seconds left moved him past Luke Denbow (42 points in 2022) and Tom Malone (42 in 1970) for the AHS record.
“The OCC is really tight this year and I feel like all the games from here on out, they’re all gonna be tough,” Ediger said. “I’m just happy that we got the win and it was cool to get the record.
“This year, my goal is just to have fun – no pressure, just go out, play every night and have fun with the guys,” he added. “There’s been a core group of us since we were little, all the way from second grade.”
Ediger capped his night with a game-clinching assist to Kingston Jenkins for the final points of the contest with 15 seconds showing.
Ashland’s Garrett Davis blocked a Mansfield Senior 3-point try after that and the home crowd went into a frenzy.
The victory snapped Ashland’s five-game losing streak to the Tygers (4-2, 2-2). The last time the Arrows had beaten Mansfield Senior at AHS was Feb. 18, 2022 – an overtime win that gave Ashland an outright OCC crown.
If the Arrows are to threaten for league supremacy again this winter, Friday’s comeback victory will play a major role.
Ashland trailed 48-37 midway through the third quarter after a 3-pointer from Rashad Reed Jr.
“This is special,” 11th-year AHS head coach Jason Hess said. “Not only did Pax have a great game – and we needed every one of (his points) – but I’m sure for him personally, it means a lot more when you can do that in a win.
“He took the ball to the basket, he made free throws, he hit 3s, he hit a pull-up jumper. He scored in pretty much every way possible tonight.”
Three days after suffering their first loss of the season at Lexington (63-61), the Tygers seemed like they weren’t ever going to let the Arrows pull ahead.
Until senior Gabe Baith (10 points) hit a pair of free throws to give Ashland a 62-61 lead with 3:36 left to play, the Arrows hadn’t been in front since a 5-4 advantage in the first quarter.
But after Mansfield Senior sophomore Kaylen Brooks dropped in an acrobatic, spinning layup in the lane with 5:15 to play, the Tygers managed just four points the rest of the way.
The visitors were hampered all night at the free-throw line (16-of-27), where they were just 3-of-7 in the fourth quarter.
Despite crashing the offensive glass particularly hard in the first quarter, when it had seven offensive rebounds, Senior was unable to finish many of its in-close shots (17-of-38 inside the perimeter).
“We missed a boatload of free throws, a boatload of layups, gave up a school record in points to one of the best players in our conference,” ninth-year Tygers head coach Marquis Sykes said. “That’s the gist of the game right there.
“I felt like if we finished at the rim, if we knock down our free throws, we’d put ourselves in a position to win the game, but we didn’t. And we didn’t defend well enough tonight.”
Mansfield hadn’t allowed more than 63 points in any of its first five games, and it had been led in scoring in all five of those contests by Brooks, who entered Friday averaging 23.2 points per game.
But the All-OCC sophomore guard, who already has an offer to Division I Youngstown State University, had just two points at half against AHS and totaled just nine for the game. That number trailed teammates D.J. Corbin (16 points, game-high 9 rebounds), Reed Jr. (14 points) and Andrew Brooks Jr. (10 points, 6 rebounds) in scoring.
“He’s seen every kind of defense that there is to be played his entire life,” Sykes said, “so it was more so I think he was just out of his rhythm today. He just had an off-night, and that happens.
“He had some finishes at the rim that just didn’t quite go down.”
Despite committing 12 turnovers in the first half, the Arrows managed to enter intermission trailing just 33-28. Ediger had 19 of his squad’s points at that juncture and Ashland was within 54-50 entering the fourth period after clutch treys from both Emmons and Davis in the third.
“After the third quarter, we started getting energy,” Baith said, “and then Paxon hit that 3 in the fourth quarter (to make it 65-62 with 1:52 left) and everybody went crazy.
“He wasn’t forcing too much, he was being patient,” added Baith of his senior teammate. “They were leaving him open, he was driving to the basket. He started getting buckets inside and then started making his way out.”
The Tygers, who graduated OCC Player of the Year Kyevi Roane from last season’s OCC runner-up squad, will play at home for just the second time this season Tuesday against winless Madison.
Sykes believes his squad will come together as the year progresses.
“It’s early in the season and we’ve been here before; we’ve had some early losses,” he said. “Ultimately, we’ve got to get back to playing tighter basketball on the defensive end.”
Ashland, meanwhile, will get to bask in the glow of an unforgettable night until it returns home Tuesday for another crucial OCC tilt against defending league champ Lexington (4-1, 2-1).
While the Arrows got a game-high six assists from Baith and some crucial inside play down the stretch from Killian O’Brien (4 rebounds, 2 assists), they likely will be leaning on Ediger much of the season.
The first-team All-OCC guard surpassed 900 career points Friday (now 925), jumping from 19th to 15th all-time in Ashland scoring history. One of the guys Ediger passed on that list was his head coach.
“He’s our basketball player, he’s our gym rat,” said Hess, who had 905 points as an Arrow before graduating in 2000. “He’s the guy that was here all fall – these other guys were on the golf course, they were playing football and they just need a little more time to get in rhythm, get in sync. Then we can be a little more balanced.
“Pax is carrying the load right now and he’s playing his butt off.”
