ASHLAND – For most teams in Division II women’s basketball, this point in January is the home stretch.
For Ashland University – if history keeps repeating – it’s not even the halfway point.
Five times since 2012, the Eagles have played in the national championship game. If rankings are any indicator, they’re on pace to be there again. After winning it all last year, Ashland again owns the No. 1 spot in the nation with a 17-1 record.
A repeat run back to the ultimate finish line would mean AU still has 19 games to play, including 10 in Great Midwest Athletic Conference action to close the regular season.
“Coming into this year I felt a ton of pressure,” said sixth-year head coach Kari Pickens.
That’s understandable. AU recorded its third perfect season in seven years last winter, tying its own Division II record of 37-0.
“I actually had a hard time to start enjoying the process because I just wanted us to be a national championship-caliber team (as soon as the season started) because there was that expectation,’ Pickens said.
“Once we got going into the season a little bit, I think I was able to take a step back and realize it’s a season. We have 28 regular-season games to get ready for a championship run.”
The Eagles once again are checking off statistical boxes rarely checked.
Their win Jan. 18 over Trevecca Nazarene was the 950th in program history. Five days before that, in an 81-32 pummeling of Findlay, AU stretched its Division II record of consecutive road wins to 35 while limiting the Oilers to the fewest points they had ever scored in a game.
It was the fewest points Ashland has allowed to any team in 40 years.
They tied a program record for made 3-pointers (18) in a win over Cedarville; have won 39 consecutive G-MAC games overall; had a 45-game win streak (fourth in D-II history) before falling Dec. 16 to Ferris State; and they entered the week leading America in both team field-goal percentage (50.8) and assists per game (20.2).
As in all seasons, the Eagles needed time to sort out their biggest strengths.
“Balance and depth are a huge part (of this year’s identity),” Pickens said. “When you look at our numbers from this year we have two people averaging double figures and the rest are averaging anywhere from 5.5 to about 8 points per game.
“That’s been a huge strength because every game it’s been someone different to step up.”
The numbers, again, bear it out.
Ashland’s 35.8 points per game off the bench rank sixth in the country and they have seven different players who sink at least a 3-pointer a game.
That balance is the main reason the team is third in the nation in scoring offense (81.8 point per game) while also having legs fresh enough to pace the G-MAC in scoring defense at 57.3 ppg. That average is just 3.0 ppg off the program-record-low set by the 2012-13 national championship team.
“I think we were deep last year, but we’re really deep this year as well,” fifth-year senior Annie Roshak said. “Everybody has really bought in to however many minutes they play, they’re going to go out and play them really hard and do what’s best for the team.”
Perhaps no player defines the off-the-bench talent for AU better than junior forward Zoe Miller. At times this season, the Hiland High School product has led the nation in field-goal percentage.
Her 13.9 ppg are second on the team and a slight bump up from her 12.1 average a year ago – her first season at Ashland after transferring from Division I Bowling Green.
Since the Eagles made their first-ever national championship game in 2012, only two other players have averaged double-digit points off the bench, and neither of them put up better than 10.5 per game.
Miller is cut from an elite cloth, having helped guide Hiland to three consecutive state Final Four appearances. The run her junior season was cut short due to COVID, but the Hawks returned Miller’s senior year to win it all with a 28-1 record.
“You learn to compete so hard (when you’re a champion in high school) and you just want that reputation to keep going,” she said. “Working so hard in high school it just pays off, so it’s nice to see that in the end.”
Recruiting and reeling in talent from Ohio high school juggernauts has become the norm at Ashland. Jena Stutzman and McKenzie Miller were other Hiland products who Zoe Miller remembered watching at AU as she grew up.
Roshak, who prepped at North Canton Hoover High School in the powerhouse Federal League, recalled following former Eagle standouts Kelsey Peare and Julie Worley when they first starred at Hoover.
“I would ask them, ‘Hey, is (AU) as good as it seems?’” Roshak said. “And they said, ‘It’s better. What you’re seeing is what you’re getting.’ ”
“When you know how to win, you know how to win,” Pickens added. “So going after kids from these winning programs has always been something we try to pursue.”
Junior forward Hayley Smith leads Ashland in rebounds (8.3 per game) while adding 9.1 ppg. Guards Savaya Brockington (7.4 ppg, 3.0 assists pg) and Morgan Yoder (5.2 ppg, 3.3 apg) help spread the floor.
But it’s impossible to look at this year’s Eagles and not notice the storyline that is Roshak. She has been at AU now for five of Pickens’ six seasons as a head coach and is on pace to finish as the program’s all-time leading scorer.
Currently at 15.1 ppg, Roshak could end up leading the team in scoring in four different seasons, something only Amber Rall (2003-07) has done at Ashland.
The 6-foot-1 graduate student was leaning toward making the 2022-23 season her last, but eventually decided she wanted to take advantage of the extra year made available by the NCAA due the impact of COVID.
“When she got halfway through (last season) and she came in, we were having a 15-minute meeting,” Pickens said. “She was like, ‘I don’t really want to start working yet. Maybe I’ll just take a couple classes and play next year.’
“And I said, ‘Let’s do that plan. That sounds great to me.’ ”
Ashland’s current all-time scoring leader is Laina Snyder, who closed her career in 2018 with 2,295 points in 138 games. Roshak had 2,125 points through the same amount of games entering this week.
If she were to play the maximum the rest of this season, she will have competed in an AU-record 158.
“More than having a national championship or any (individual records), I think playing well is just a great way to give back to this university and to the community who just supports us so well,” said Roshak, also on track to be the best free-throw shooter in AU history.
“I just wanted to get everything out of (playing) that I can and it’s been so much fun.”
Pickens said any records that come Roshak’s way will be deserved.
“I would be so proud of her (if she broke the scoring record),” the coach said. “People might try to say, ‘Well she had a fifth year,’ but I don’t think people realize how hard COVID was.
“As a freshman, she was a significant, impact player on a team who could have won a national championship and we (missed out on a potential six more games).
“Then we go into the 2020-21 season and we had a shortened season and were getting tested for COVID five times a week every week.
“The fact that Annie was able to put together the season that she had (averaging 21.0 ppg in 2020-21), if she would be able to set the scoring record here, it would be a well-earned feat that took a lot of time and energy and effort to be able to accomplish.”
But it’s the team dominoes that have to fall before anything else, and that starts with the rest of the G-MAC schedule.
Ashland closes its regular season with 10 more conference games, followed by a potential three in the conference tournament.
Since joining the G-MAC in 2021, the Eagles are 56-1 against their league foes, and if they run the table this year, it will be the fifth time since 2016-17 that AU didn’t lose a single conference game.
The team’s 66-62 nonconference home loss Dec. 16 to Ferris State – currently ranked No. 7 – was a hard pill to swallow, thwarting Ashland’s chance to try to break its own Division II record of 73 consecutive wins.
Pickens said worse things have happened.
“I think the loss was actually a really good thing for our team,” she said. “While you never like to lose, you’re able to look at things a little more closely and it gave us permission to make changes.
“Like, ‘OK, if we need to shake up the lineup a little bit, let’s shake up the lineup a little bit.’ ”
After all, perfection is something the Eagles have already done anyway. Roshak smiled when asked if there was anything she hasn’t yet experienced in her five seasons.
“Back-to-back (national championships) is something that hasn’t happened,” she said, “so obviously we’d love to do that. But we’re just taking it one game, one day at a time.”
