No. 1 AU Women Open Conference Sked With Home Rout Of Storm

The start of the Great Midwest Athletic Conference portion of the 2023-24 season was Thursday (Nov. 30) night at the Sherrill Hudson Court at Kates Gymnasium, and the No. 1-ranked Ashland University women's basketball team came away with an 84-38 victory over Lake Erie.
 
Ashland's 43^rd consecutive win puts the Eagles at 6-0 overall and 1-0 in the Great Midwest – and puts them alone in fourth place on the NCAA Division II all-time list. Ashland is the only D-II women's basketball program in history to have two separate win streaks of at least 43 games (it has the D-II women's hoops record of 73 wins in a row, as well).
 
"I thought we started the game strong and we finished the game strong," said Ashland head coach Kari Pickens. "There were some lulls in the second and third quarter that weren't great that we can continue to improve on, but overall, to come away with a 46-point win on the opening round of G-MAC play, I was proud of our girls' fight and some things that we did really well."
 
The Storm is 1-2, 0-1.
 
Ashland ran out to a 13-4 lead after the first 3½ minutes, forcing a Storm time out. By the end of the opening period, the Eagles led 26-9 – thanks to a defensive effort which featured 10 forced turnovers.
 
By halftime, the Ashland advantage had grown to 44-21 (it was 44-16 late in the second quarter), and the Eagles had as many points off 14 Storm miscues as the Storm had in total in the first 20 minutes.
 
Ashland posted the first 10 points in the third quarter, and went on to victory from there.
 
POST-GAME NUGGETS

• Ashland had an assist-to-turnover ratio of 25-to-8 on Thursday night, leading to 48.5-percent shooting from the field and 13 3-pointers.
• "Having 14 offensive rebounds, which has not been a story for us this year, that was a huge positive (as well)," Pickens said.
• Junior forward Hayley Smith led the way with 14 points, followed by fifth-year forward Annie Roshak with 13 and junior forward Zoe Miller with 10. Roshak now has 1,954 career points, as she is looking to become the fifth in program history to score 2,000 in a career.
• Lake Erie committed 26 turnovers, leading to 37 AU points.
• No Ashland player played more than 21 minutes on Thursday night.
• "It was nice to be able to get some other people on the court," Pickens said.
• The Eagles are 19-0 against the Storm since the start of the 2010-11 season.
• Ashland is 47-1 all-time in Great Midwest play (42-1 in regular season, 5-0 in tournament).
• The Eagles have won 197 of their last 210 games at home (.938).
• Ashland is 120-3 (.976)) all-time as the No. 1 team in D-II, and 302-18 (.944) all-time as a ranked team in D-II.

 
UP NEXT
The first road conference game of the new season on Saturday (Dec. 2) at 1 p.m. at Walsh (2-2, 1-0).