ASHLAND — Luke Jurjevic may not be the most celebrated player on the roster, but what Ashland’s 6-foot-4 senior forward brings to the table is impossible to ignore.
If the Arrows are to challenge for the Ohio Cardinal Conference championship, it will be due in no small part to Jurjevic. He’s averaging 10.4 points and a team-high 7.4 rebounds a game through the first five games, helping Ashland to a 4-1 start.
“Luke has done a tremendous job. He’s worked really hard and makes a big impact when he’s on the floor,” Ashland coach Jason Hess said after Tuesday’s 61-42 win at Madison. “He’s a big kid with a good frame and he’s worked really hard to get stronger so he can absorb contact and move to get position.”
With high-scoring classmate Luke Denbow attracting most of the attention — the sharpshooter is averaging 22.8 points a game and needs 106 points to become Ashland’s career scoring leader — Jurjevic’s contributions sometimes go unnoticed. In addition to his expanded offensive role, he has become a reliable rim protector.
“He does a nice job defensively of altering some shots,” Madison coach Chris Armstrong said of Jurjevic. “He’s a solid player.”
Jurjevic scored a season-high 15 points and grabbed a season-best 12 rebounds in the win at Madison. The Arrows struggled early before Jurjevic provided a second half spark with eight points in the third quarter.
“In the first quarter shots weren’t falling that much and heads were down,” Jurjevic said. “In my head I’m like, ‘I’ve got to get everyone going and get some fire underneath us.’ I just went out there and gave 100 percent.”
Ashland’s glaring weakness is its size. Jurjevic is the only player on the guard-centric roster who is 6-foot-3 or taller.
“We don’t have a deep bench in the post,” Hess said. “We get small real fast.”
Ashland’s quest for an OCC title will heat up in the next few weeks. The Arrows are at Wooster on Friday before playing three consecutive conference games from late-December to early-January.
With no clear-cut favorite, the chase for the OCC title should be wide open. Ashland hasn’t raised a conference banner since 2015.
“The conference is very competitive,” Hess said. “The big thing we have talked about this year is we need to control what we can control — attitude and effort and how much we put into practice every day. We’re not where we want to be, but we are working hard.”
