Box Score Trailing 63-59 with 3½ minutes to play on Thursday (Dec. 3) night, Ashland University's women's basketball team used a late 13-0 run to win at Grand Valley State, 72-65, in the 2015-16 Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference opener for both teams.
The No. 13-ranked Eagles are 5-0 overall and 1-0 in the GLIAC, and the last undefeated team left in the conference, while the Lakers are 4-2, 0-1.
As a team, Ashland had several un-Eagle-like statistics (10-of-21 from the free-throw line, 43.8-percent shooting from the field and 20 turnovers), but those were countered by a 51-36 rebounding advantage and a defense which kept the Lakers to 37.3-percent shooting from the floor and 24-percent shooting from 3-point range.
Senior guard McKenzie Miller led the AU offensive effort with 18 points while adding five rebounds and three assists, while sophomore forward Laina Snyder posted her 17th career double-double – 16 points and a career-high 18 boards.
Sophomore forward Andi Daugherty added 14 points and nine rebounds, and junior guard Alex Henning posted a career-high 12 points, a career-best seven rebounds and three helpers.
The Lakers ran out to a 7-0 lead, but the Eagles rallied to knot the score at 18 at the end of the first quarter. AU led 26-21 in the second quarter, and took a 35-32 lead into halftime.
Back-to-back Snyder layups to start the third quarter lifted Ashland to a 39-32 advantage, but Grand Valley State worked its way back to 41-41 tie. A Daugherty layup at the buzzer had the Eagles up 49-47 with a quarter to play.
The Eagles and Lakers went back-and-forth in the final period, but, with the score tied at 59, Grand Valley State began to pull away thanks to back-to-back layups. Ashland countered, however, on consecutive layups of its own by junior guard Kelsey Peare and Daugherty to re-tie the contest.
AU then scored its fifth, sixth and seventh consecutive points on a trey by Miller inside of two minutes to play, and an eighth straight marker on a free throw by Peare. Miller made it a 10-0 run with a running jumper with 49.2 seconds to play, then Henning upped the consecutive points streak to 12 with two freebies with 32.1 ticks left.
Ashland will end its two-game Michigan GLIAC swing on Saturday (Dec. 5) at 3 p.m. at Ferris State (0-5, 0-1). That game will be played at Big Rapids High School.
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