Ashland University's men's basketball team moved one step closer to first place in the Great Midwest Athletic Conference on Thursday (Feb. 19) night, but it certainly wasn't easy.
The Eagles made play after play down the stretch, earning their seventh win in the last eight games, 68-61, at Malone on Thursday night. Ashland is 19-7 overall and 13-5 in the Great Midwest, now 1½ games behind first-place Walsh going into the last week of the regular season.
AU also is one win away from its first 20-victory campaign since 2022-23 (22-10 record).
After going down 7-2 early, the Eagle big men began to assert themselves. Sophomore forward
Jason Moore (four points) and senior forward
Maceo Williams (three) pulled Ashland even at 7-7.
Trailing 12-10, the Eagles then ran off 21 of the game's next 25 points to begin to pull away. By halftime, the Ashland advantage was 35-18, and the play was complete on both ends – shooting 60 percent from the field with one turnover, while keeping the Pioneers (14-11, 7-10) to 25.9 percent from the floor.
Both Moore and redshirt freshman guard
Max Dawson scored 10 points in the game's first 20 minutes, while combining to make 9-of-10 from the field.
Ashland led 40-22 early in the second half, but then Malone began to chip away at that deficit. With seven minutes to play, the Pioneers had whittled AU's lead down to four points at 49-45. Junior wing
Destin Logan, however, scored five straight to extend the Eagles' lead back to nine points.
Fitting for a Great Midwest men's basketball game, Malone once again got the game to four points at 55-51 with four minutes to play – then to two points at 55-53 with less than three minutes left. Redshirt freshman point guard
Jordan Edwards split a pair of free throws, then Moore got the put-back to leave the Eagles up 58-53 with 120 seconds remaining.
Then after two Pioneer charity tosses, Williams' 3-pointer put Ashland on top 61-55 with a minute and half to play. A Malone triple, another Williams trey, then another Pioneer three left the scoreboard at 64-61 in AU's favor going into the last half-minute.
That led to freshman point guard
Beau Siegfried stepping up and making two freebies to effectively end the game.
COMPLETE OFFENSIVE EFFICIENCY
- Moore (15 points), Williams (13), Dawson (13) and Logan (12) each scored at least 10 points in the victory – and the quartet combined to miss four shots from the field (19-for-23).
- Dawson and Logan paced a bench which outscored Malone's 30-10.
- Ashland made 58.5 percent from the field, 9-of-14 (64.3 percent) from beyond the arc, and 11-of-14 (78.6 percent) from the foul line.
COMING UP
Back to the Sherrill Hudson Court at Kates Gymnasium after a week between games, taking on the Cavaliers (21-3, 14-3) in a key late-season contest at 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 26.
It is the Eagles' Morgan's Message game and Military & First Responder Appreciation game – an AU camouflage T-shirt is available
HERE, and proceeds go to Vets with Pets.
