Huskies Fall to Top Ranked Ashland Thursday Night Play Video
Posted: Jan 04, 2018

Huskies Fall to Top Ranked Ashland Thursday Night

HOUGHTON, Mich. – The Michigan Tech women's basketball team suffered a Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference loss for the first time this season, falling at home to top ranked Ashland 103-68 Thursday night in the SDC Gym. The Eagles set the tone quickly to start the game with an 11-0 run and the Huskies were unable to recover.

"Ashland is an unbelievably good team and you have to do a couple of things really well in order to give yourself a chance to win," Michigan Tech Head Coach Kim Cameron said. "One of those things is being able to take care of the basketball. Ashland's press and pressure gave us a lot of trouble which led to turnovers early and I felt like it shook our confidence a little bit.

"The first scoring surge that they were able to put together was pretty tough to come back from and things just kind of compounded from there. I kind of kept waiting for us to put together a scoring run and for somebody to hit a shot and spark a little bit of confidence. Unfortunately, we weren't able to string enough good things together in a row to take some control of the game."

Ashland (14-0, 6-0 GLIAC) began the 11-0 scoring on their first possession of the night when Renee Stimpert dropped in a layup following an Andi Daugherty offensive rebound that kept the ball in the Eagles hands. The run covered nearly three minutes with Daugherty capping it on a layup at the 7:05 mark of the first quarter.

The Eagles then pushed their advantage to 16 points at 21-5 on a triple by Brooke Smith with 4:19 to play in the quarter. Michigan Tech (11-2, 5-1 GLIAC) countered with the next eight points to draw to within eight at 21-13 at the 2:53 mark of the first period. Junior Michelle LaFave posted three of her career high 17 points on a conventional three-point play followed by a layup from senior Hannah Stoll and a triple courtesy of senior Kelli Guy.

Unfortunately, the quarter would close with seven straight points by Ashland, capped by a trey from Stimpert to bump the score to 28-13 through 10 minutes of play. The Eagles would go up by as many as 18 points in the second quarter at 41-23 before a layup from sophomore Hannah Hobson cut the gap for the Huskies to 43-30 with under two minutes to play in the second. However, that's as close as Tech would get the rest of the night as Ashland would pull away for good in the third quarter.

LaFave went 8 for 11 from the field on her way to the career high of 17 points in Thursday night's contest. Her previous career best was 14 points which she has accomplished twice this year. Guy followed LaFave with 14 points and Stolll chipped in seven points. Senior Lindsay Winter hauled down a team high 10 rebounds while dishing out four assists. As a team, the Huskies connected on 30 of 71 shots from the field (42.3%), were 5 of 24 from three-point range (20.8%), and 3 of 7 at the free throw line (42.9%).

Ashland had five players in double figures, paced by Jodi Johnson with a game high 22 points. Daugherty tacked on 21 points, Maddie Dackin posted 12 points, Sarah Hart chipped in 11 points, and Stimpert closed the night with 10 points. Laina Snyder was limited to six points, but hauled down 12 rebounds. The Eagles were successful on 38 of 73 shots from the floor (52.1%), were 6 of 12 from behind the three-point arc (50.0%), and 21 of 28 at the free throw line (75.0%).

Michigan Tech will be back on the floor Saturday afternoon when the team hosts Tiffin University in another GLIAC contest. The tip-off is scheduled for 1 p.m.