ASHLAND – It seemed like Renee Holt was all but finished with first-time experiences in basketball a while ago.
When you lead your conference in scoring four times and win an Associated Press state poll title in high school, then follow that with a national championship and two perfect seasons in college, the “new milestones” scrapbook starts to run out of room.
But wildly enough, the fifth-year Ashland girls basketball coach watched her Arrows turn in one of the best performances in the history of a program that dates back to 1970 on Saturday against Norwalk.
With a stunning 58-44 win over the Truckers – a team that had demolished Ashland 59-25 in its season-opener exactly three months earlier – Holt and her squad celebrated a Division III district championship.
A season that already had produced the program’s first conference title in three decades also assembled Ashland’s first district title in 46 years.
Despite her glowing basketball resume as a player, it was a first for Holt, too.
“This is my first district title at the high school level – and my first appearance (in a district title game),” she said. “… So this one’s extra special.”
While she was busy scoring 2,305 points and winning 63 games at nearby Crestview High School from 2012 through 2016, the Cougars never got beyond the district semifinals.
Even in her 24-1 senior season, with a Division III state poll title in tow, Holt didn’t get to experience what Saturday’s final whistle felt like.
This year’s Arrows seem to have a knack for such breakthroughs.
“I honestly get nervous sometimes and I did not get nervous for this game,” said Ashland junior guard Madison Hoffman after finishing with a career-high 21 points. “I felt very confident going in and I knew my team had my back if I didn’t have my best game.
“That first game of the season (against Norwalk) was not who we are and we knew we had improved more than they had.”
After the Arrows cruised past Tiffin Columbian 55-32 in the district semifinals – just Ashland’s second win in a tournament game in the last nine years – Hoffman said they were hoping the Truckers beat Sandusky because they wanted the rematch.
In front of a solid contingent of AHS fans who had made the drive to Buckeye Central High School, Ashland seized the moment.
The Arrows had scored 25 points in their first meeting with eighth-ranked Norwalk (22-3). On Saturday, they carried a 31-8 lead into halftime.
“We came out strong, we came out physical, we ran up the score and they didn’t know how to respond,” said Ashland sophomore guard Cici Steury, who had seven of her 11 points before halftime.
On paper, Norwalk was supposed to win. The Truckers returned all five starters from a 17-7 team last year and were just two seasons removed from a trip to the Elite Eight (23-4 record), with four contributors from that team still on the roster.
They were supposed to keep expanding on that postseason legacy while the Arrows – still learning how to win in big moments – were supposed to wait their turn.
Instead, Ashland survived Norwalk’s huge second-half push that saw the game get as close as 43-38 in the fourth quarter.
Truckers senior 1,000-point scorer and District 6 Player of the Year Abby Koenig was hampered by foul trouble the entire afternoon and fouled out with more than five minutes still to play, managing just three points.
Ashland had its own foul concerns. Forward Camryn Cox picked up her fifth less than 30 seconds after Koenig, and Arrow starters Lauren Green and Kennedy Lacey both played with four fouls in the fourth quarter as well.
But Ashland was able to do what the overwhelming majority of Ashland teams have not been able to do over the last four decades. The Arrows found a way to get through it, never gave up the lead, and improved to 16-0 when scoring at least 45 points this season.
“We don’t call fouls in practice; that’s how I coach, that’s how I played,” Holt said. “You toughen up and fight back.
“(The fouls) do make me nervous, but it’s cool to see those girls that don’t get many minutes, they came in and they stepped up big for us.”
The Arrows’ 15-for-16 performance from the free-throw line in the fourth quarter showed grit and fortitude the team often has lacked in years past.
This is an Ashland program that had just four winning seasons from 1996-97 through last year. The Arrows had just 10 tournament wins in the last 31 seasons entering this one.
But there they were on Saturday. Holding a 50-38 lead during a timeout with 1:34 left, Cox and senior teammate Laney McNamara briefly danced outside of a team huddle to “Cotton Eye Joe” while the song cranked up the energy spreading through the Ashland crowd.
These are the snapshot moments that occur when a program finally gets to the other side of mediocrity.
“(The lack of a district title since 1979) came up in conversation a few times,” Lacey said, “but we just looked at this game as a game we needed to win. We weren’t really looking at the past, more to the future.”
For her part, Lacey has now cleared 350 points and 165 rebounds in each of her first two high school seasons. The sophomore already ranks 14th in AHS history in scoring (713 points).
Holt, meanwhile, was 20-66 through four years as a head coach before this season. She’s doubled that win total in just a few months behind Ashland’s 20-5 record.
The Arrows were on the cusp of a big breakthrough last year, sitting at 9-9 through 18 games and climbing into the top half of the Ohio Cardinal Conference while playing mostly underclassmen.
But they skidded to the finish line, losing their last five games, including a sectional championship contest at home to lower-seeded Wapakoneta.
“In the locker room after the game we talked about (being) at that mountain – we were at the bottom the past three years and we’re starting to climb up the steepest part,” Holt said after the tournament loss last February. “The toughest part is getting over that edge.”
It appears that part of the turnaround was only a season away.
Now the task gets even taller for Ashland in its Sweet 16 game 8 p.m. Wednesday at Bluffton University against seventh-ranked Toledo Notre Dame Academy (19-6).
The Eagles are in their 17th season under head coach Travis Galloway, who carries a 323-104 record. From 2011 through 2021, Notre Dame was one of the most feared programs in Ohio.
The Eagles totaled a 216-45 record, 10 straight Three Rivers Athletic Conference championships and eight trips to the Division I Final Four (state runners-up in 2015 and 2017).
The team is coming off a 60-22 rout of Toledo Central Catholic (8-16) in which it outscored TCC 40-7 after the first quarter of their district title game. Notre Dame hit 10-of-21 3-pointers in the victory.
The Eagles joined the Michigan-based Catholic High School League last year, and perhaps their most telling scores this season came in three defeats.
Facing Ann Arbor Bishop Gabriel Richard – a Division II state runner-up last year in Michigan with four returning starters – Notre Dame was competitive in losses of 49-38, 38-28 and 48-31.
Returning starters for the Eagles from last year’s 12-12 team are senior guards Nina Sims (12.1 points, 2.8 steals per game) and Bella Calcamuggio (6.1 points, 2.3 assists, 2.3 steals) – both of whom plan to play in college – and 5-10 senior forward Jade Battle (6.2 points, 4.8 rebounds).
Sims has connected on 39 3-pointers while sophomore Brooklyn Armstead has hit 43, including five in the district title game. Starting guard Kallie Thames also averages 8.1 ppg.
Ashland surely will need another game like Saturday if it is going to hang with the Eagles. And it’s likely things will be much more uncomfortable for the Arrows, whose seven wins before the Norwalk game were all by at least 20 points.
“Credit to (Holt) and her players,” Truckers coach Kyle Brubaker said Saturday. “She’s got them playing their best basketball at tournament time and that’s what you’re supposed to do.”
Wednesday’s winner plays for a regional title back at Bluffton on Saturday against the winner of Granville (23-2, Licking County League) vs. Elida (16-9, Western Buckeye Conference).