Box Score The Ashland Universty Eagles presented the Tiffin Dragons with a lump of Cole. After that, maybe the AU fans should have started chanting, "Burn Baby, Burn."
Cole Krizancic, AU's junior guard, scored 20 points, knocking down 5-of-8 shots from three-point range to help send the Eagles past the Dragons, 78-72 Saturday afternoon (Feb. 1) at Kates Gymnasium. The win was AU's second straight and raises the Eagles' record to 8-10, 5-9 in conference action.
Tiffin is 7-11 and 3-10.
Krizancic was one of four Ashland players to reach double digits. Forward Wendell Davis had 15 points, forward Will Evans scored 13 points and guard DaWuan Thomas contributed 12 points, eight assists and two steals.
Ashland led at halftime, 34-26. With 5:04 gone in the second half that lead had ballooned to 43-30. The Eagles led, 60-46 with 6:06 to play in regulation and had a 10-point spread with 4:10 left. Shortly after that, the Dragons started putting the Eagles at the free throw line and went into a hurryup offense.
That strategy helped the Dragons get within four points twice, once with 28 seconds to play and again with nine seconds to play. In the last 36 seconds, the Eagles went 7-of-8 at the three throw line to hold off the visitors. Thomas went 6-for-6 on free throw attempts during that stretch.
For the game, the Eagles made 24-of-31 tries (77.4 percent) at the line.
Krizancic entered this game with a team-high 27 triples. Over the last few weeks he's been slowed by a hip injury. He played 14 minutes on Thursday against Ohio Dominican and had five points. Against Tiffin, he looked much sharper, playing 30 minutes and in addition to his point total, he had three assists and three rebounds.
AU did a good job defensively on Tiffin guard Joe Graessle. Graessle (23.0 ppg.) has the ability to score points in waves. He got 19 points against the Eagles, but had to work hard to do it. The guard was 6-of-15 from the field. He had just five points in the first half when the Eagles built that eight-point lead.
Tiffin forward Khaleal McCormick led all players in the game with 23 points. AU guard Brook Turson was the game's high rebounder - he collected seven missed shots.
The win gives Ashland an 8-3 record at home. The trick now for the Eagles will be to take the momentum from this week and apply it over the next seven days. AU plays three road games next week. The first game in that string comes Monday night (Feb. 3, 8 p.m.) at Lake Erie.
AU
MBKB/ALK
