Box Score Trailing 38-33 with 9:10 left in the second half, Ashland University's women's basketball team caught fire, outscoring Ohio Dominican 39-14 the rest of the way Thursday (Jan. 29) night in a 72-52 Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference road victory.
The Eagles remain in second place in the GLIAC South Division (two games behind Wayne State), and are 13-6 overall and 9-4 in the conference. Ashland now has won 11 of its last 13 games, and four in a row.
The Panthers now are 6-13, 3-10.
Thursday night's win is Ashland head coach Sue Ramsey's 450th as a collegiate head coach over 28 seasons at both Dayton and Ashland. Ramsey's career record is 450-342 (.568).
Senior guard Taylor Woods had a second half to remember, scoring 21 of her game-high 23 points in the second half. In the process, Woods moves past both former teammate Daiva Gerbec (1,258) and Gweynn Hampel (1,268) into seventh place on AU's all-time scoring list at 1,271 points, and is just two points behind Sue Rupp (1,273) for sixth place.
Freshman forward Laina Snyder had 12 points and eight rebounds, and freshman forward Julie Worley had six points and a team-high nine rebounds in 19 minutes off the bench. Both Woods and junior guard McKenzie Miller had four assists in the victory.
Ashland hit 20 of 21 free throws (95.2 percent) overall, and hit 53.1 percent (17 of 32) from the field in the second half. The Eagles kept the Panthers to 52 points on 36.2-percent shooting from the field and 9.1-percent shooting from 3-point range. Ashland also forced 25 ODU turnovers, and had a 41-33 rebounding margin.
Both teams struggled to find their offensive rhythm in the first 20 minutes, with the Eagles taking a 20-19 lead into halftime. Ohio Dominican scored the first seven points of the second half to take a 26-20 lead, and was ahead 32-24 with 14:24 left in the game.
Ashland trailed by five points at the 9:10 mark of the second half before its offense kicked into high gear. Woods scored 19 of her points in the final 8:16 of the game.
Ashland will return to GLIAC road action on Saturday (Jan. 31) at 1 p.m. when it travels to Tiffin.
NOTES: The Eagles now are 9-0 against ODU in GLIAC play, and 17-2 against the Panthers all-time…Ashland now has been led or co-led in rebounds by a freshman in 21 consecutive games…The Eagles are 12-1 in 2014-15 when leading at the half.
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