Ashland University's men's basketball team won a white-knuckler on Wednesday (Dec. 29) night at the Sherrill Hudson Court at Kates Gymnasium, outlasting Malone, 61-58, to move into a five-way first-place tie in the loss column in the Great Midwest Athletic Conference.
The Eagles are 6-4 overall and 3-1 in the Great Midwest, and the Pioneers are 9-3, 4-1, after their nine-game winning streak was snapped.
"Basketball's a game of adversity," said Ashland assistant coach
Brook Turson. "We knew Malone wasn't going away. They are really, really good, really talented offensively. We expected a fight out of them.
"We talked about 40 minutes of toughness, but we really talked about the last eight minutes, making winning plays, and that's what we did."
WHAT HAPPENED
- Malone jumped out to leads of 5-0, 7-2 and 10-5, but Ashland rallied to knot the game at 12 on a deep jumper from sophomore guard Tre Baumgardner. Senior forward Derek Koch's layup gave AU a 15-14 lead, and a back-and-forth remainder of the first half went to the Eagles, 31-28.
- Ashland's defense clamped down on Malone to the tune of 32.4-percent shooting from the field and 28.6 percent from 3-point range. Sophomore guard Hunter Shedenhelm led all scorers in the first 20 minutes with 11 points, including a 3-for-4 showing from downtown.
- The Eagles' largest lead to that point became 39-32 at the 17:11 mark of the second half, but it was a 43-39 game in favor of AU with 11:55 left in regulation.
- Ashland held on to a 50-49 lead with 4:22 to go, then the Pioneers tied the game at 54 on a triple. Koch stepped up to the line with 1:19 left and hit two free throws to put AU back on top, 56-54.
- Malone re-tied the contest at 56 on a layup, then senior forward Aaron Thompson's late shot clock 3 – his first triple of 2021-22 – gave Ashland a 59-56.
- "That's AT. He's a winner. He's an absolute winner," Turson said. "He's so fun to coach, because you know he's going to give you 110 percent every time. There's really nobody else in that situation that I would have put in their hands. That's not the play we drew up, but thankfully, it went down the bottom of the net."
- Said Thompson, "This is a great feeling. We're going to experience adversity. We've just got to come together in situations like that. We all came together and got it done, which is what we have to do for the rest of the season."
- The Pioneers' two charity tosses with 20.2 seconds left made it a 59-58 score, then Baumgardner, with 16.1 ticks to go, returned the favor for the final margin of victory.
- Baumgardner and Shedenhelm each had 13 points to pace the Eagles, senior guard Bo Furcron added a dozen points, Thompson had 11, and Koch collected nine points, 12 rebounds and three blocked shots.
- Of Baumgardner, Turson said, "He was great. We were going to ask him to play 40 minutes. He did a great job. Tre brings a toughness to us that we need."
- Said Baumgardner, "It feels great. All glory to God. We all stepped up. We all played a big part. I've been through a lot, injuries. Just being patient with the whole thing."
- Turson said of Shedenhelm, "He's a weapon, and he's always got the green light with us. It was good to see Hunter play well, because that's the Hunter we know."
- Malone made just 32.3 percent from the field and 26.9 percent from downtown.
- "Defensively, we held them to 32 percent. That's unbelievable," said Turson.
UP NEXT
The Eagle men will round out the 2021 calendar year on Friday (Dec. 31) at 3 p.m. at Walsh (7-3, 3-1).
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