Ediger, Baith nearing end of momentous ride

By Doug Haidet

ASHLAND – History will remember this chapter in Ashland boys basketball.

With one last Division II tournament approaching for seniors Paxon Ediger and Gabe Baith, it’s a moment that has nearly struck midnight, but the two Arrow guards have refused to let it slip away without adding their distinct bookmarks.

To cut to the chase, Ediger and Baith are the first two players in the 118-year history of Ashland basketball to hit the 1,000-point mark in the same season.

But to peel back the layers, their impact and influence on the program have been so much more.

Both multi-year captains. Both four-year lettermen.

Jason Hess, Ashland’s 11th-year head coach who spent time as an assistant and had a solid AHS career that ended in 2000, has seen about as much Arrow basketball as anyone in the last 30 years.

He said just to have two four-year lettermen in the same class is wildly rare. The historic scoring for Ediger and Baith came alongside their team-leading tenacity.

“Our kids really turn to these guys because they know who’s put the time in and they know who’s been through it on the floor,” Hess said. “It’s easy for them to be the natural leaders because there’s not much at the varsity level that they haven’t seen.”

“In 10, 20 years from now, people are going to talk about Gabe and Pax,” he said. “When you look back, you’ve got Brett Vipperman and Isaac White in the mid-2010s, you’ve got Greg Emmons and Mark Hess from the 2003 group (that made the Elite Eight). There are some great pairs that went together and these guys are just one more that people are going to remember.”

Only twice in the last three seasons have Ediger and Baith not both been starters – once due to sickness last year for Baith, and once due to a foot injury last week for Ediger.

They would have paired up even more had Ediger not taken an elbow to the teeth in a game that ended his freshman season with eight contests left.

During the fall as sophomores, the two would get together at 5 a.m. a few times a week inside Ashland’s Keith Wygant Memorial Field House just to get some shots up.

Apparently (as the slightly modified saying goes), the early bird gets the basketball worm.

“Flow-wise, we move really well together,” Ediger said, “just because we’ve played so much together and both know how to move on the ball and off the ball. We’ve always played off of each other.”

NEXT-LEVEL TALENT FROM THE JUMP

The two met as second-graders during an Ashland basketball camp at Brookside Park.

Ediger remembers thinking of Baith at that time as “the good player from Crestview,” before he began attending Ashland.

They eventually would play against older kids during camps and open gyms, even lacing up their sneakers as fifth-graders against players as old as eighth grade.

That’s how they built their scoring base.

“When we watched these guys in elementary school,” Hess said, “we knew they could shoot the basketball.”

Even from the start of their high school careers, Ediger and Baith were leaned on to be shooters.

While Ediger lost the bulk of his varsity opportunities to injury his freshman season, Baith ended that same year Top 4 on the squad in points, rebounds, assists and steals while lofting up 106 3-pointers.

It was a lightning-quick takeoff to a career that has seen the senior start all but a couple games on varsity.

As sophomores, the duo set the tone for a reality that has continued every year since – turning in the top two scoring averages on the squad.

Neither of them were ecstatic about their first few seasons. Baith said he was too inconsistent and Ediger said he was slow to get going as a sophomore, when he was just trying to find different ways to impact the game.

But the overall basketball rhythm eventually arrived, landing them where they are today.

“At the beginning of this year, we talked about just having fun playing,” Baith said. “The wins and stuff would come, but we just needed to have fun and play together.”

“Going into the year, I remember telling him we were both going to score 1,000,” Ediger said. “That was cool, and then getting a share (of the Ohio Cardinal Conference title) was big.”

EDIGER CEMENTS A SCORING LEGACY

Unless the Arrows (14-8) can go on a tournament run, Ediger will finish his career fourth on the program’s all-time scoring list.

His 1,252 career points put him behind only Luke Denbow (1,719), Grayson Steury (1,399) and Isaac White (1,315).

“Coming in as a freshman, he wasn’t the biggest, so his physicality (has come the furthest),” Baith said of his classmate. “But every aspect of his game has gotten a lot better since his freshman year.”

At 6-foot-1, 165 pounds, Ediger is just the sixth player in Ashland history to lead the team in points three different times. That limited list includes Earl Thomas (1933 graduate), Dick Messner (1948), Hess (2000), Taylor Housewright (2008) and White (2015).

Perhaps even more impressive, if he can score 10 points in Wednesday’s district semifinal against St. John’s Jesuit, Ediger will be just the third Arrow ever to score 500 in a season.

Denbow did it twice (623 in 2021-22, 528 in 2020-21) and Ken Sidle had 510 in 1953-54.

“I give Pax a lot of credit for the way he’s figured out how to score against bigger, stronger and even more athletic kids at times because of how skilled and how crafty he is around the basket,” Hess said. “It seems like every game I watch him, I’m thinking (at some point), ‘How’d he make that shot?’

“He just impresses you with the way he can get to the basket, score with his left hand, score with his right hand, the soft touch off the glass when he’s getting bumped and banged inside.”

Ediger also will finish with more than 275 rebounds and 175 assists for his career, but his shooting prowess this winter has reached some once-in-program-history highs.

The senior scored at least 22 points in the first six games, and at home against Mansfield Senior on Dec. 19, his 44 markers set a new school record.

That night, Ediger scored at least eight points in every quarter, hit six shots from downtown and was 8-of-9 from the free-throw line in Ashland’s 70-65, must-have win over the Tygers.

“He took the ball to the basket, he made free throws, he hit 3s, he hit a pull-up jumper,” Hess said after the game. “He scored in pretty much every way possible tonight.”

Ediger cleared 1,000 points three weeks later (a layup off a long outlet pass from Baith), then on Jan. 27 at Mansfield Senior, he went for 38 in a triple-overtime, 97-93 thriller of a win.

Only 10 times in Ashland history has a player scored 38 or more points in a game. Ediger has two of them in the same season against the same team.

That same night, he started a streak of what turned into 41 consecutive made free throws, becoming just the 18^th player in Ohio history to hit at least 40 in a row.

Ediger said his shots at the stripe were a big focus in the offseason. He’s gone from 67 percent last year at the line to 88 percent this winter (121-of-137).

“It was just about having confidence – knowing that you’re just shooting and nobody’s guarding you,” Ediger said. “It’s one of the easiest shots in basketball, so there’s no reason to overthink it.”

He’s made 219 free throws and 133 3-pointers in his career, and his current 23.3 points per game this season are the fourth-most ever for an Arrow.

Ediger recently was named the OCC Player of the Year and was a three-time All-OCC first-team pick. He’s also this year’s Division II/III Northwest District Player of the Year and was the No. 1 draft pick for the annual News Journal All-Star Classic.

A serious foot injury hampered his driving abilities against Lexington in Ashland’s OCC finale, and he was wearing a boot during the team’s final regular-season game against John Hay.

But he’ll suit up in Wednesday’s tournament game.

BAITH DEFINES GRIT, HARD WORK

Like Ediger, Baith would probably need about three tournament games to move from his spot on Ashland’s scoring list, where he stands No. 8 all-time at 1,032 points.

He’s averaged double-digit scoring in three seasons and has made 179 career 3-pointers – just 11 off the school record held by White.

Perhaps more impressively, the 5-8, 160-pound senior has 353 rebounds in his career. That number is a testament not only to his instincts, but to his hands, which also helped him set Ashland’s career record for receptions in football last fall.

“He’s just been so steady and consistent,” Hess said. “He’s got those strong hands and he can go and get the basketball. And he understands how to get himself into position to get rebounds.”

Baith said he’s always had a knack for reading a ball well off the rim, but he said his favorite aspect of the game is finding his teammates for a bucket.

His first assist Wednesday will give him 100 this season, and he will finish his career with more than 275 helpers, having led the Arrows in the category three times.

“I like getting assists,” Baith said. “Scoring is fun and that energy is different, but making a good pass, to me, it’s better than having a lot of points.”

The guard also has 160 steals for his career, but Hess said the thing that might always stand out the most about Baith is his shooting range.

A two-time OCC first-teamer, he hit 7-of-11 shots from downtown in the triple-OT win at Mansfield Senior, scoring 31 points and connecting from well beyond the arc on multiple occasions.

When Baith netted a career-best 32 against West Holmes this season, he was 6-of-13 from deep.

“One of the things that everybody sees with Gabe is the distance that he shoots the ball from,” Hess said. “It’s just mind-blowing how he can shoot it from that deep consistently without changing his technique and form; he shoots 25-to-30 footers the same way other guys shoot 15-footers.

“There have been a few times where I’ve made the comment during the game, ‘Wow, that’s deep.’ I’ve seen it for four years and there are still times like that.”

Baith said he never pays attention to where he is on the scoring side of half-court. If he thinks he has a good look, he’ll let it fly.

Even when he netted his 1,000th point off an assist from Ediger against Norwalk, it came from deep beyond the right wing.

“(What’s most impressive) is just his calmness as the game gets more intense,” Ediger said. “Everything slows down the older you get and the more games you play, and that’s definitely been the case for Gabe.

But without question, no game from this season will be remembered more vividly than the outing at Mansfield Senior.

Baith buried multiple must-have 3-pointers in overtime that night and set up one of the most miraculous shots in AHS history.

Ediger hit an off-balance, buzzer-beating prayer of a trey right in front of the Tygers’ student section that sent the game into its third overtime and sent the gym into a frenzy.

Ediger said it was easily the craziest shot he’s ever hit.

“I got on my phone later that night,” he said, “and on my Instagram DMs there were like four or five random people I don’t know sending me the video from in the student section.”

“That’s the one game that everybody on the team has said was a big memory for us,” he said. “To beat Mansfield Senior twice and to do it in triple-overtime, that was pretty wild.”

FINISHING TOUCHES

Hess said the road win over the Tygers was the improbable finish that gave Ashland the chance to share the OCC crown this year.

He said it was a testament to the will of Ediger and Baith to simply not let their team lose.

There is no question the Arrows will need that same determination in their district semifinal against St. John’s Jesuit (17-5). The Titans are ranked No. 4 in Division II by MaxPreps and regarded as one of the best teams in the entire state after winning the uber-talented Catholic High School League.

A win there would send Ashland up against the winner of Toledo St. Francis de Sales (13-8, No. 12) and Toledo Start (11-8, No. 24).

“There are some big schools and we’re definitely (an underdog),” Baith said, “so we’re going to have to play the best we’ve played. But we have it in us.”

The Arrows have posted a 13-5 record over their last 18 games. They finished with a 9-2 mark at home.

Hess said the ride this year’s team has been on – with Ediger and Baith steering the momentum – will stir up plenty of emotions when it comes to a stop.

“The little kids that are sitting in the stands now, when they get to be in high school, they’re gonna say, ‘Remember when Gabe and Pax were here and they were shooting the ball from 25 feet and doing all kinds of crazy things?’” Hess said.

“I give them a lot of credit for making this season very memorable for our coaching staff and everyone involved in it. It’s just been a lot of doggone fun.”