Box Score Every team dislikes losing at home.
Ashland University's women's basketball team seems to dislike it more than most.
The No. 15-ranked Eagles improved to 3-0 following a 92-64 win on Saturday (Nov. 21) against Southern Indiana (2-1) in the 2015-16 home opener. Ashland is 71-10 (.877) at Kates Gymnasium since the start of the 2010-11 season.
"We have a team goal to win every home game," said sophomore forward Andi Daugherty, who had a team-high 23 points on 10-of-15 shooting from the field, a team-best seven rebounds and a team-high-tying five assists, "and coach (Robyn) Fralick's pregame talk was home is sacred. You want to respect it. And when a team comes in, it's our job to win."
Ashland was thorough in victory over the Screaming Eagles, shooting 58.1 percent from the field in both halves, outrebounding USI, 32-25, and racking up 29 assists on 36 field goals. The Eagles also forced 24 turnovers and made just 12 themselves.
"That makes me smile a lot," Fralick said. "We did a good job pushing. They trust each other. They trust ball movement. I thought we did a much better job cutting without the ball, so we shot a high percentage."
Individually, eight players scored at least five points, four had at least four rebounds and seven had at least two assists.
"That's obviously a big for our team," Fralick said. "We talk about the team all the time, that everybody's somehow positively impacting the game. When you have that in multiple categories, that's hard to guard. We had a lot of players impact the game in a lot of ways."
Said Daugherty, "Everyone worked really hard over the summer, and we're much more experienced this year. We're just confident right now."
Sophomore forward Laina Snyder had 22 points, four rebounds and a career-high seven steals, while senior guard McKenzie Miller had 10 points, four boards, five assists and two thefts.
Saturday's game was a rematch of a 2015 NCAA Division II Midwest Regional Tournament quarterfinal won by Ashland, 81-61.
"Any game is a big game, especially against a good D-II regional opponent," Fralick said.
The 2014-15 Eagles fell one game short of a return trip to the Elite Eight. That has been a motivating factor for the 2015-16 Eagles.
"We were two or three better possessions against Lewis, and we could have made the Elite Eight," Daugherty said. "Each game now is a building point to get there, so I think everybody's really motivated right now."
The Eagles will return to the road on Tuesday (Nov. 24) for a game against regional foe Indianapolis at 6 p.m.
"Another big GLVC regional game, so we know we have to learn from this," Fralick said.
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