ASHLAND – Jason Hess was reflecting on different decades Friday night.
Twenty years ago, the 2000 Ashland High School graduate had never even considered coaching basketball.
Ten years ago, he had yet to be the head coach of a varsity program.
But on the back of Ashland’s 61-28 home rout of West Holmes on Senior Night, Hess became just the third coach in the 116-year history of AHS boys basketball to collect 100 wins with the Arrows.
“This is a special program to me for a lot of reasons and I can’t imagine how life would be if I didn’t have basketball and didn’t have Ashland basketball,” said Hess, a former Arrows’ standout who went on to star at Malone College.
“It’s definitely a very memorable one, obviously, to get No. 100,” he said. “But to get this group of guys and this team to have some satisfaction for the turnaround they’ve made this year, to finish the second half of the conference at 5-2 (in Ohio Cardinal Conference games) … give these guys a lot of credit.”
The milestone didn’t look attainable after the first half of the season. The Arrows (10-11, 7-7 OCC) opened the campaign with a 3-8 record and were just 1-5 in league play.
But AHS put a cap on its league slate Friday by pummeling the Knights (4-16, 1-13). Ashland limited the visitors to just one point in the first quarter and finished the contest with 15 3-pointers made – just two off the school record.
Seven different Arrows hit a shot from downtown and five sank multiple treys during a game that saw West Holmes commit just two fouls. Ashland didn’t shoot a single free throw, but had five players with at least eight points, led by sophomore guard Paxon Ediger (13).
Seniors Isaac Stewart (11 points), Max Swaisgood (9) and Keith Bowman (6) all hit shots from beyond the perimeter in their final regular-season home game. Junior Tyler Sauder also collected 11 points and sophomore Gabe Baith had eight.
“It was one of those games that you’re a little nervous going into because we handled them so well the first time (67-31 at West Holmes) and you’re just not sure who’s going to show up,” Hess said. “But our kids did a really good job getting off to a good start.”
The Knights had just one player score more than three points, as Sam Sprang finished with 12.
The win helped Ashland finish tied for fourth in the OCC standings, as state-ranked Lexington (20-1, 14-0) and Mansfield Senior (16-6, 12-2) ran away with the top two spots. New Philadelphia (12-9, 8-6) locked up third Friday by beating Wooster (7-14, 6-8), so the Arrows finished even with Mount Vernon (10-11, 7-7).
It’s the eighth time in 10 seasons under Hess that Ashland has collected double-digit wins.
He is just the third coach out of 23 in AHS history to claim 100 victories, joining Cloyce Taylor (157 wins in nine seasons from 1945 through 1954) and Jim Barr (115 wins in 11 seasons from 1972 through 1983).
Barr’s 11-season tenure was the longest for any coach in Ashland history.
Hess said he had never thought about coaching until former Arrows varsity coach Rob Lavengood asked him to help fill out his staff in 2005-06.
Hess went on to coach junior varsity for four years, then was a varsity assistant under Lavengood and former coach Tim Fralick for six total years before accepting the varsity head coach position in 2015.
Even then, with a demanding job on the family farm, Hess said he wasn’t planning to take the varsity gig. But when other potential candidates began calling him to see if would want to remain as an assistant, his mom, Kathy Hess, gave him some advice.
“She said, ‘Jason, if you’re going to be helping these people and you’re going to be doing all the work, you might as well just do it yourself,’ ” Hess recalled Friday. “And here we are almost 10 years later.”
Kathy Hess was battling illness at the time and passed away before he was officially announced for the job.
“I can’t imagine, with the loss of my mom and the stuff that we’ve had in my life, being able to deal with it without having these boys,” Hess said. “I’ve been so blessed to be able to coach so many great kids.
“I appreciate the way they rallied around it and made tonight special for me.”
The Arrows close out their regular season Tuesday when they travel to Sandusky, which was 17-1 entering Friday night.