Undefeated Ashland beats Minnesota Duluth for Division II women's basketball title

In the leadup to the NCAA Division II women's basketball championship, Minnesota Duluth's Mandy Pearson stressed that the Bulldogs — who keep trotting out the word "resilient"— were going up against an opportunistic and disciplined team in Ashland University.

The Bulldogs' coach, in her eighth season, nailed it.

Ashland took advantage of a strong second quarter offensive push — and early foul trouble for the Bulldogs' leading scorer Brooke Olson — to maintain its unbeaten season in a 78-67 win over UMD at American Airlines Center in Dallas. It's the third NCAA title for Ashland (37-0), which won in 2013 — when coach Kari Pickens played for the Eagles — and in 2017.

At one point the Bulldogs (32-4) were down 20 points, a deficient they continued to poke at, eventually closing within seven points in the final minutes.

"They're phenomenal people," Pearson said of her team in a postgame interview. "They never give up. I think when there was four seconds left it was the first time I really saw them hanging their shoulders."

The teams were evenly matched in the first quarter — which closed with a jump shot by Ashland's Zoe Miller to give the Eagles a 14-11 advantage. Olson earned her third foul midway through the second, and spent the rest of the quarter on the bench. The Eagles went on to score 15 unanswered points and closed out the half with a 40-22 lead.

"We got a lot of inside touches and we pushed the ball well and I think the whole game we stuck to what we wanted to do well," said Ashland's Annie Roshak, who had a team-high 20 points. "The second quarter run was huge for us."

Olson returned to the court in the second half, hitting layups, jump shots, three-pointers as the Bulldogs' moved back into contention. UMD senior Maesyn Thiesen, with her right knee taped and re-taped throughout the game, chased balls, forced turnovers and hit a crucial momentum-shifting three-pointer.

The Bulldogs hadn't lost a game since a close-call in January against Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference foe Augustana. Since then, the team has been on an unprecedented run. The program had never advancedthe Final Four — played this year on the same court and the same weekend as the Division I and Division III tournaments — nor even the Elite Eight.

Olson, named the Women's Basketball Coaches Association Division II Player of the Year, went into the game just four points short of the all-time Division II postseason points record set by Johannah Leedham of Franklin Pierce in 2009. She matched the record with a jump shot from the corner within the first two minutes of the game, then made the record her own from the free throw line. She ended the game with 26 points.

Olson was composed at the buzzer, offering a hug to Thiesen — a mood that carried into the postgame press conference.

"It definitely doesn't feel good to get this far and come up short, but every time that I've tried to get sad about the game, I'm always like 'No,' " Olson said. "I just need to keep my head up because of the season we've had.

"This was supposed to be a rebuilding year."

The Star Tribune did not send the writer of this article to the game. This was written using a broadcast, interviews and other material.