Eagle Nation Celebration Planned for Tuesday Night

The Athletic Department is sponsoring an Eagle Nation Celebration Tuesday, March 27, at 7 p.m. in Kates Gymnasium. This event is free and open to the public and will allow everyone to honor the Ashland University women's basketball team and coaches as well as the All-America athletes from the winter sports season. This event will last about an hour.

The Ashland University women's basketball team finished as runner-up in the NCAA Division II National Championships, after losing a hard-fought overtime game to Shaw (N.C.) in the finals.

This program, titled, "Eagle Nation Celebration," is free to all Ashland University fans. In addition to the women's basketball team, the school will recognize some of the student-athletes who have helped make this one of the most successful winter sports seasons in school history. Track and field's Ryan Loughney (Grahamsville, N.Y./Tri-Valley) won his second consecutive national title indoors and swimming's Julie Widmann (Littleton, Colo./Heritage) won the first individual national championship of her career. Student-athletes will also be recognized from wrestling and men's basketball.

The Kates Gymnasium concession stand will be open and the Ashland University Bookstore will have merchandise to sell.

The Eagles lost in overtime by an 88 to 82 score. Senior Jena Stutzman led the Eagles with a career-high 32 points and became the single-season Ashland University record holder for 3-point shots made in a season with 98. Junior Kari Daugherty tallied 24 points and 15 rebounds.

The teams battled back and forth for much of the contest with Ashland leading most of the first half and holding a 43-32 advantage at halftime. The back and forth continued in the second half while Ashland led as late as the 2:07 mark (69-68), Shaw hit a bucket a minute later and never trailed again. The game was sent into overtime by a three-point shot from way beyond the arc by Stutzman. During the overtime period Shaw took control with an inside game and strong offensive rebounding.

This was the Eagles first ever appearance in the national championship game and the Eagles had won 33 straight games going into the final game.