No. 2 AU rolls again in GMAC play over Kentucky Wesleyan

ASHLAND — It’s late December and early in the league race but the Ashland University women’s basketball team is alone in first place in the Great Midwest Athletic Conference.

The No. 2 ranked Eagles prevailed 68-47 against Kentucky Wesleyan on Saturday at Kates Gymnasium in a bruising battle of a game to improve to 11-0 overall and 5-0 in the GMAC.

The league loss was the first of the season for the Panthers, who saw their five-game winning streak come to an end while slipping to 7-4 and 4-1.

“It's not going to be pretty every single game,” AU coach Kari Pickens said. “This team has really big goals. We want to be able to compete for championships. I know it’s early, but this is going to put us in a good position to be in the driver's seat the rest of the way.”

AU trailed just once in the game, 8-7, and for only 16 seconds. But with Kentucky Wesleyan using a physical, switching man-to-man defense, it was tough for the Eagles to get their usual post-up shots inside.

And even tougher to build a significant lead.

A Savaya Brockington 3-pointer from the right wing put the Eagles in front 18-14 at the end of the first quarter. Then it was AU’s own defense that stoked an 11-3 outburst at the end of the second quarter and beginning of the third, allowing the Eagles to go up by double digits.

Senior forward Annie Roshak, who scored the game’s first four points, got things started with four more late in the half. Sarah McKee finished a fast break with a layup that made the halftime margin 38-24.

Hayley Smith, who was held scoreless in the first half, opened the third quarter with a foul shot and a score from the right block for her first points of the game.

Roshak rolled to the basket down the left side for two, and Ashland’s lead was 43-27 early in the second half.

During that stretch, AU held Kentucky Wesleyan scoreless for 5:41 of game time.

“I think in practice this week we really focused on (our defense),” junior guard Macy Spielman said. “They are a good offensive team. Us sticking to Ashland basketball and how we play defense, I think it makes it really hard for teams to be efficient.”

The Panthers chipped away and trimmed Ashland’s lead to 51-38 after three quarters. Then the Eagles ran off an even better defensive stretch, holding Kentucky Wesleyan scoreless for the first six minutes of the fourth quarter.

Spielman and Zoe Miller sparked the offense during that shutout span, allowing the Eagles to establish a comfortable 62-38 margin with four minutes left in the game.

Spielman opened the final period with a drive to the lane for a basket that just beat the shot clock, then converted her own steal into a layup for a 55-38 lead.

A Spielman defensive rebound led to a three-pointer from the top of the circle by Miller and Ashland’s first 20-point advantage at 58-38.

Two free throws from Miller and an inside basket from Smith off an assist from Sam Chable allowed the Eagles to empty the bench with a 24-point lead.

Spielman scored eight of her 11 points in the game in the second half. She also finished with five rebounds, two assists, three steals and one blocked shot in 22 minutes off the bench.

“I’ll give Macy a lot of credit,” Pickens said. “I thought this was her best game of the year, not only offensively, but her defense, her rebounding. She just brought a really good pop to the team today.”

In fact, Kentucky Wesleyan’s style played right into what Spielman does best.

“I love playing physical,” she said. “I love games like this. I love getting hit in the face or I love getting fouled. I think it’s fun.

“We had a couple silly turnovers out of their physicality but I think we made the adjustments.”

Roshak finished with a game-high 14 points on 4-of-6 shooting from the field and 6-of-6 from the free-throw line. She moved into ninth place on the AU all-time scoring list with 1,480 career points.

“They fronted and they had really great backside help but we kind of adjusted our offense a little bit within that,” Roshak said. “It wasn’t our best offensive game but we’re going to learn from it.”

While it was a tough shooting day from the floor (23-of-58 for 40%), the Eagles made 16-of-18 from the foul line, outrebounded KWC 41-31 and turned 20 Panther turnovers into 26 points.

The AU defense limited Kentucky Wesleyan to 33.3% from the field and 2-of-15 from behind the three-point line.

“It was a really good team win,” Pickens said. “On a night where we did not shoot the ball particularly well, we locked it down defensively.

“I was really, really pleased with our sustained discipline for start to finish defensively. I thought it was arguably our best defensive game of the year and we found a way to get a 20-point win against the No. 2 ranked team in the GMAC.”

The Eagles will finish the pre-Christmas portion of their schedule Monday with a 1 p.m. home game against Trevecca Nazarene.

This article originally appeared on The Daily Record: Women's Basketball: No. 2 AU beats Kentucky Wesleyan, improves to 11-0