Ashland women’s basketball looks for a successful end to GLIAC stay
ASHLAND, Ohio (BVM) — One of the goals for the Ashland University (AU) women’s basketball team each year is to be the best squad at the NCAA Division II level.
Over the last decade, they’ve made quite the push towards that distinction. The Eagles have notched a .910 win percentage, won 287 games and secured the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference’s (GLIAC) regular-season title six times.
In postseason play, AU has won the conference tournament seven times and made four trips to the NCAA Division II National Championship game, winning the title in 2013 and 2017.
Last season, Ashland went unbeaten in conference play for the third time in four seasons, and won the conference tournament for a fifth straight year. The Eagles entered the 2020 Division II NCAA Tournament with a 31-0 record, and the No. 2 seed in the Midwest Region before the event was canceled due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
The foundation for the team’s recent success began under head coach, Sue Ramsey. After AU joined the GLIAC for the 1995-1996 season, Ashland earned its first division championship in the 2001-2002 campaign.
The Eagles won a share of the South Division title, finishing in a three-way tie with Hillsdale College and Gannon University. Two years later, the program won its first outright division crown, and notched the team’s first appearance in the NCAA Tournament.
AU went on to win the South Division in back-to-back seasons, and notched another NCAA Tournament appearance in 2006.
Ashland’s real ascent towards being a league threat began in the 2010s. After splitting the division title with Findlay University in the 2010-2011 season, the Eagles won the division and the conference’s regular season and postseason titles in back-to-back seasons.
After suffering an overtime defeat to Shaw College in the national championship game the year prior, the Eagles defeated Dowling College 71-56, to win the program’s first national title in 2013.
AU’s four-year run of earning at least a share of the South Division ended in the 2014-2015 season as Wayne State University took the top spot. Ashland qualified for the NCAA Tournament and advanced to the Midwest Regional Championship before falling to Lewis University.
Following Ramsey’s retirement after 20 years as head coach, assistant coach Robyn Fralick took over the program and built upon Ramsey’s accomplishments.
In her three years at the position, the Eagles lost just three games, and made two appearances in the national title game. In that span, the team won the South Division title and the conference’s regular-season championship and postseason tournament each season.
In November of 2016, the Eagles began a winning streak that lasted 73 games — the fifth-longest streak by any men’s or women’s team in all three levels of the NCAA.
While winning that many games in a row is impressive enough, how they won them is just as noteworthy. During the streak, just three teams lost by ten points or less to Ashland, with one team losing to the Eagles by one possession.
Later that season, just 80 miles from campus in Columbus, Ohio, AU completed an unbeaten season by beating Virginia Union 93-77– winning the program’s second national championship.
After a loss to Central Missouri State in the 2018 national championship game that snapped Ashland’s long winning streak, Fralick was hired by Bowling Green State University as head coach. As a result, former Eagles’ player, Kari Pickens, took over the top position.
As Fralick did when she replaced Sue Ramsey, Pickens sustained AU’s momentum. Despite rival Grand Valley State University (GVSU) ending Ashland’s string of winning the South Division and regular-season titles, the Eagles went 29-3, and won the conference tournament for the fourth consecutive year.
After a stunning defeat to Northern Michigan University in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament, the Eagles entered the 2019-2020 season eager to make another run at a national championship.
AU avenged their losses to the Lakers the previous year by sweeping GVSU on its way to a 31-0 campaign, and another hat trick of conference titles.
During the offseason, the Great Midwest Athletic Conference announced that the Eagles would join their conference for the 2021-2022 season. The move allows AU to resume natural rivalries with Ohio schools including Ohio Dominican University and Findlay University.
As winter sports wait to see when action will resume in the GLIAC, one of the conference’s most successful teams hopes for one more chance at a conference title before moving to a new league.
