Ashley Battle
Ashley Battle (Linsly School, Class of 2000). When asked to name the greatest girls’ basketball players in Ohio Valley history, this former Lady Cadets’ name is always one of the first mentioned. And for good reason.
Battle arrived on the Linsly campus at the urging of some of her family and friends to get her away from the rough section of her hometown of Pittsburgh. She went to Linsly to take an admissions test prior to entering high school and seemingly the rest was history.
When she arrived at Linsly, the girls’ basketball team was struggling, but she helped turn that around quickly and eventually led Linsly to an undefeated season in 1998-99.
At Linsly, she became the school’s all-time leader in numerous statistical categories, including points (1,532), rebounds (823), assists (385) and steals (371).
She was named OVAC Class A Player of the Year four consecutive seasons and was a three-time all-State pick in West Virginia.
After receiving countless recruiting letters, Battle eventually chose to continue her career at the University of Connecticut over the likes of Duke, Penn State and Stanford.
At UConn, she joined with Dianna Taurasi and Maria Conlon and helped lead the Lady Huskies to three NCAA National Championships, including an undefeated season in 2003.
Battle was a standout on the defensive end of the floor as evidenced by the fact that she won the Big East Defensive Player of the Year award, but she also scored 1,000 career points.
Battle, who owns a degree in marketing and economics from UConn, was drafted by Seattle in the second round of the 2005 WNBA Draft. She then signed with the New York Liberty of the WNBA in 2006 and she also spent time playing for Seattle and San Antonio. All told, she appeared in 142 WNBA Games and averaged five points per game. She also played professionally in Spain in 2007 and 2008.
