TOLEDO – Ashland boys basketball coach Jason Hess knew it was going to be a tall task Wednesday.
Facing Division II state title contender St. John’s Jesuit in a district semifinal at Toledo Central Catholic, his concerns held true.
The Titans surged to a 25-7 lead after one quarter and kept all the momentum from there in a 77-45 victory over the Arrows.
Hess said after the game the team might have been the best Ashland has faced in six years.
St. John’s (18-5) entered the night ranked No. 4 in the division and No. 10 overall in Ohio by MaxPreps, and the Titans were the first program from northwest Ohio to win a title in Detroit’s Catholic High School League.
They will play Toledo St. Francis de Sales (14-9) on Saturday for a district championship.
St. John’s senior Race Kowalczyk, a 6-foot-6 forward committed to NCAA Divison I Bradley University, scored 14 of his team-high 18 points in the first quarter.
“He’s a tough matchup at 6-6, and could shoot over top of us,” said Hess of Kowalczyk, the son of University of Toledo men’s basketball head coach Tod Kowalczyk. “He’s got a really good touch and it seemed like he was almost out there by himself the way he was shooting the ball.”
Hess said junior Titan guards Parker Theobalds (17 points) and Ethan James (10) probably will be scholarship college basketball players as well. The Titans got another 11 markers from senior forward Coy Hamic, a quarterback committed to play football at Ashland University.
According to Hess, the last time the Arrows played a team with as much talent and depth might have been when they lost 78-40 to Lima Senior in 2020. Those Spartans made it to the Division I regional finals before the COVID-19 pandemic halted the season.
Faced with a huge size advantage inside Wednesday, Hess felt the Arrows (14-9) would need to hit roughly half of their shots from the perimeter to hang in the game.
But Ashland was just 1-for-14 from downtown at intermission, trailing 46-20 at the break.
“I thought we took care of the basketball and moved the ball, and we got some good looks,” Hess said. “I think the different background (with portable baskets) threw our depth and shooting off a little bit, because we just didn’t shoot well early.”
Ashland was paced again by one of the best scorers in program history, senior Paxon Ediger. The guard scored more than half of the team’s points, dropping in 14 of his game-high 23 by halftime.
Ediger finished with 1,275 points as an Arrow, ranking him fourth in program history behind only Luke Denbow (1,719), Grayson Steury (1,399) and Isaac White (1,315).
“I thought he played one of his better games of the year,” Hess said. “I know he didn’t score as many points as he has in some other games, but he played very under control, he didn’t force shots.
“He got to his spots and got the shots he wanted to get. He really scored well for us and without him it would have been a really lopsided game.”
The senior was the OCC Player of the Year, set the AHS single-game record with 44 points against Mansfield Senior and finished with 513 markers for the season (23.3 points per game).
Ediger is just the third player in Ashland history to reach 500 in one year. Only Luke Denbow scored more (623 in 2021-22 and 528 in 2020-21).
Arrows senior guard Gabe Baith was limited to just four points, but he goes into the AHS history books as the No. 8 all-time scorer with 1,036 points.
He logged his 100th assist for the season Wednesday and finished his career with more than 350 rebounds, 280 assists and 160 steals.
Baith also was just 11 behind White for Ashland’s career record in made 3-pointers (179).
Another Arrows sharpshooter this winter was senior Reed Emmons. The Ashland University golf commit hit a pair of 3-pointers Wednesday to finish with 64 for the season – just four off the school record shared by White and Daniel Hess.
Ediger, Baith and Emmons were joined by classmates Gunner Lacey, Ty Bates and Brandon Briggs to give Ashland six seniors this year.
The 14 wins this season for the Arrows were the most for the program since an 18-5 finish in 2021. They also claimed a share of their first Ohio Cardinal Conference crown since 2022.
“The impact those seniors have had on our program is going to last a lot longer than this season,” said Hess, now 125-127 through 11 years as AHS head coach. “There’s a lot of accomplishments in this group and it’s always a pleasure to coach those type of guys that you know are going to do the right thing and show up, work hard and put the team before themselves.”