A shorthanded Hillsdale College women's basketball team was no match for the G-MAC champions on the road on Saturday, as Ashland, the fifth ranked team in the country, dispatched the Chargers 95-54 in Hillsdale's season finale.
Missing star guard Grace Touchette with an injury, Hillsdale hung tough early, trailing the Eagles just 11-8 at the five minute mark of the first quarter. But Ashland, motivated by the opportunity to clinch the G-MAC title outright, quickly seized control, closing the quarter on a 10-0 run to take a double-digit lead and never looking back. The Eagles pushed their advantage to as much as 53 points in the second half.
In Touchette's absence, freshman Peighton Nelson stepped up for Hillsdale, scoring a team-high 14 points for her fifth double-digit scoring game in her last six outings, and providing a taste of what she might be capable of in 2022-23 now that she has a full season under her belt. Junior Sydney Mills chipped in a 12 point, 12 rebound double-double, her 12th double-double of the season, to finish the 2021-22 campaign with 291 rebounds, the seventh-most in a single season by a Charger in program history.
In her final game as a Charger, senior Lauren Daffenberg also added 10 points, including the 204th and 205 3-pointers of her decorated career, while freshman Caitlin Splain chipped in nine points off the bench and junior Arianna Sysum added four points and three blocks. Sysum also set a new single-season school record for field goal percentage, hitting 64.8 percent of her shots in 2021-22 and breaking the old record of 61.0% set by Megan Fogt in 2013-14.
The Chargers finish the season 13-14 overall, 10-11 in G-MAC play, and while Hillsdale couldn't live up to the inital promise of an 11-8 start to the season, the Chargers still improved on 2020-21 by nine wins and jumped from the G-MAC cellar to the middle of the pack in conference play. With five players with significant starting experience returning, including Touchette, who plans to use her fifth year of eligibility granted by the Covid-19 waiver, the Chargers should be in position to make another leap in 2022-23 and potentially get back to the G-MAC Tournament for the first time since the 2018-19 season.
Photo by Isabella Sheehan