ASHLAND – For the first time in three decades, the odds are starting to tilt in favor of the Ashland girls basketball team.
The Arrows cruised to a 49-32 victory Thursday while hosting Lexington inside Ashland University’s Kates Gymnasium.
The triumph gave Ashland (9-3, 7-0 Ohio Cardinal Conference) a season sweep of Lady Lex (5-9, 3-4) while also inching the Arrows closer to their first league crown since the 1994-95 season.
Back then, Ashland was playing in the Ohio Heartland Conference under head coach Dan McFadden. Those Arrows won back-to-back OHC crowns, but in the nine head coaches since then, the program hasn’t finished higher than third in either the OHC or the OCC.
With five league outings left to go and a two-game cushion on second-place New Philadelphia (8-5, 4-2), an OCC title is far from the elephant in the room at this point.
“From Day 1, we told each other we were going to win the OCC,” Arrows junior guard Madison Hoffman said. “It felt far at first, but I think as we started playing as a team and practicing hard, I think it’s becoming more of a reality for us.
“(Head coach Renee Holt) always tells us, ‘If you guys want the OCC, this is your chance, this is your opportunity to show them who Ashland basketball is.’ … Every single one of us wants it more than anything.”
Hoffman turned in the game’s most critical stretch of play Thursday.
A little over midway through the third quarter, Lexington had pulled within 26-22 behind a 12-1 run during a 4-minute span.
It was more points than the visitors had scored in the game’s first 17 minutes. Junior forward Tatum Stover notched seven of her 10 points for the night in that stretch – four of them coming off long outlet passes from senior guard Makaree Chapman (game-high 18 points).
But Hoffman buried a 3-pointer from the right corner, then dropped in a layup before assisting on another bucket from junior post Camryn Cox.
That trio of plays came in a 67-second timeframe to close out the third quarter and LHS never got closer than nine the rest of the way.
“Hoffman has been battling injuries all the way back to softball season (last spring),” Holt said, “so to see her (come through in the third) and push us forward, it’s really cool to see her make that next step.”
Hoffman finished with 10 points and four rebounds while Cox was a menace all over the floor (8 points, 11 rebounds, 3 assists, 3 steals, 3 blocks).
Neither of the juniors played against Lady Lex due to injury when Ashland squeaked past them 43-42 on Dec. 5.
Second-year Lexington coach Gabby Stover said that duo – along with a balanced mix of talent across the board for AHS – proved to be a real headache.
“They had everybody back tonight and I think that helped a lot,” Stover said. “Cox in the middle of the paint, she’s a big presence in there, so that makes a big difference.”
“They have a lot of different weapons that all offer different things. And when you have that much variety on a team and you can sub like that and keep running the same way, you’re a really good group.”
Ashland’s Kennedy Lacey continued to prove why she is one of the best players around. An OCC first-team pick as a freshman last season, the 5-10 forward notched 13 points, 15 rebounds and three blocks against Lady Lex.
Arrows senior forward Lauren Green added eight points and seven rebounds, and Lexington simply didn’t have enough to counter-punch.
Chapman and Tatum Stover (team-high 13 rebounds) accounted for 28 of the visitors’ 32 points.
Lady Lex missed its first 11 shots of the game, trailing 12-2 after the first quarter, when they also committed seven of their 20 turnovers for the night.
“We’re struggling to get consistency off the bench,” coach Stover said. “It seems like every time we rotate we kind of struggle to keep up with scoring and keeping the ball moving.”
The coach said it has been an adjustment for her squad to settle into a new guard-centric, run-and-gun offense this winter.
Last year, Lady Lex flowed things through the post with 6-3 Ava Brown and 6-1 Bella Temple. Neither is playing this season, as Brown is focused on volleyball as a Maryland University commit while Temple suffered a knee injury this fall.
Stover said she just wants her squad to focus on continuing to improve and hopes it can potentially repeat last season’s finish, when Lexington overcame on 0-6 start to the season and finished 13-12 with its first sectional title since 2012.
“I don’t care how many games it takes, I just want to see us heading in the right direction,” she said. “Obviously, this isn’t the greatest start toward the second half in the OCC, but I’m hoping we can change that.”
Ashland, meanwhile, is clearly getting giddy about what could lie ahead.
The Arrows have never won more than eight league games in any season, and this year’s team seems to enjoy knocking down milestones.
Ashland had never even started 4-0 in league play since the inception of the OCC in 2003-04.
The Arrows’ 45-24 rout of West Holmes on Dec. 19 snapped what was – at minimum – a 35-game losing streak to the Knights that dated back to at least the 2005-06 season.
On Thursday, Ashland clinched back-to-back winning records in league play for the first time in 30 years as well, doing so on the same gym floor that Holt called home while starring at Ashland University as a collegian.
She’s still in the Top 10 in NCAA Division II history in career assists (839) and finished with 1,225 points with the Eagles.
“When you come in this gym you just want to be back on the floor as a player,” said Holt, whose AU teams were 71-1 at Kates Gymnasium during her time, with the lone blemish a two-point loss to Grand Valley State. “You think about the memories, the success we’ve had – just good times.”
Now, it seems the good times are coming for her as a head coach.
Ashland was just 11-52 in her first three seasons (7-28 OCC) before a 9-14 jump last year.
“This next month is going to be a tough month for us; it’s a long stretch of basketball,” she said. “… There hasn’t been a conference championship at Ashland in 30 years, so it’s there, the girls know it.
“But again, it’s about the next game and who’s in front of us. That’s all we’re worried about.”
