Almost five years to the day, on Feb. 28, 2018, Ashland University's men's basketball team rallied from a 22-point second-half deficit to defeat Northern Michigan in overtime at the Sherrill Hudson Court at Kates Gymnasium.
Fast-forward to Thursday (Feb. 23) night, and the Eagles found themselves trailing by 21 points in the second half at home to Malone, but they ultimately succumbed to the Pioneers, 87-80. Ashland is 18-9 overall and 14-5 in the Great Midwest Athletic Conference, one full game behind both Hillsdale and Walsh with one regular-season game remaining.
The Pioneers are 15-10, 10-9.
Ashland stopped play with 15:31 left in the first half, trailing 12-5. Down 17-8, the Eagles began their first comeback – with senior guard
Brandon Haraway as the catalyst. Haraway had nine points in the first eight minutes, but AU trailed 17-13 at the second media timeout of the contest.
Malone led 25-16 before Ashland ran off six straight points, but the Pioneers took their largest lead to date at 36-26. By halftime, Malone's lead was 50-33, as it made 62.1 percent from the field and 8-of-13 from 3-point range.
In the first 20 minutes, Ashland hit 38.7 percent from the field, and 2-of-9 from beyond the arc.
Malone went up 56-35 early in the second half, but Ashland responded with 11 consecutive points to cut the deficit to 10 at 56-46. The Eagles kept chipping away, and with 12:12 to go and at the media stoppage, it was an eight-point contest at 60-52.
Ashland kept melting Malone's lead, and when redshirt freshman
Maceo Williams made a layup, the Eagles tied the game at 60 – and had a 25-4 run. The Pioneers re-took the lead at 66-60, but Ashland countered with six points in of row of its own for another tie at 66.
Trailing 69-66, the Eagles came back again, and Williams' old-fashioned 3-point play lifted Ashland to a 71-69 lead heading into the last four minutes of regulation. Malone scored the next seven points to regain the lead, as the back-and-forth continued.
Following two layups from freshman point guard
Simon Wheeler with a Pioneer triple in-between, the Eagles trailed 79-75 with 1:31 to go, but could get no closer than four points the rest of the way.
NOTABLES
- Haraway finished with 17 points, moving him into 12th place on Ashland's all-time scoring list with 1,498 career.
- A pair of freshmen, Wheeler and Williams, scored a team-high 21 points each, with Wheeler adding seven assists and Williams pulling down nine rebounds.
- Fifth-year forward James Manns rounded out four AU players in double figures with 13 points.
- Ashland had 17 assists to 11 turnovers, and made 48.4 percent from the field. The Eagles forced 16 turnovers, and converted them into 19 points.
QUOTABLES
- "Our guys fought back hard," said Ashland head coach John Ellenwood. "We did the job defensively in the second half. We didn't take away their big guys."
- "We learned a valuable lesson tonight," Ellenwood said. "They're a good team. They deserved that win. They beat us twice this year. We've got to get ourselves off the mat."
UP NEXT
The Eagles will finish the regular season on Saturday (Feb. 25) at 2 p.m. at Trevecca Nazarene (2-23, 1-18), then play host to a 2023 Great Midwest Athletic Conference Tournament quarterfinal game on Tuesday (Feb. 28) at 7:30 p.m. against an opponent to be determined.
