Ashley Claussen serves as the Vikings’ Director of Basketball Operations and Analysis, rejoining her former college coach in PSU head coach Lynn Kennedy.
In her first season on staff in 2019-20, the Vikings went 16-16 in 2019-20, and beat Eastern Washington 83-70 in the first round of the Big Sky tournament. Desirae Hansen and Kylie Jimenez were each named to the All-Big Sky third team, as the pair led the Vikings with 14.3 and 12.1 points per game, respectively. Hansen scored in double figures in 12 straight games to finish the season, including four 20-point games in the Vikings' last six games. Jimenez, meanwhile, reached 1,000-career points against Weber State on Feb. 29, becoming the 19th member of the 1,000-point club at Portland State, as well as the third new member in the past three seasons.
Jordan Stotler broke the Portland State record for blocks in a season while becoming only the third player in Big Sky Conference history to record 100 or more blocks in a year. Stotler bettered the mark her former teammate Courtney West set with 94 blocks during the 2016-17 season. Stotler also tied West's single-game record with nine blocks in the Vikings' game against then-No. 23 Tennessee.
The Vikings hosted the legendary Lady Vols program on Dec. 21, and set a new single-game record with 1,748 fans in attendance.
Portland State led the Big Sky in free throw percentage (.791) and three-point field goal percentage (.373), and ranked fifth and 11th in the nation in each category, respectively.
The Vikings' .373 three-point percentage set a new Big Sky-era program record, crushing the old mark of .359 that the Vikings set two years earlier in 2017-18. The Vikings broke the single-game record with 15 three-pointers against Eastern Washington on Feb. 15, breaking a mark that had stood since Dec. 29, 2007. The Vikings matched the record two weeks later while going 15-of-31 (.484) from deep against Weber State. The Vikings also set a new overall program record with 261 made three-pointers, as three different Vikings moved into the single-season top 10 for makes in Belle Frazier (64), Jimenez (63) and Hansen (60).
Claussen worked remotely during the 2020-21 seaosn, but still helped the Vikings post an impressive 6-2 record in games decided by three points or less despite a pandemic-altered regular season. The Vikings practiced 5-on-5 only 25 times during the 2020-21 season, a fraction of what they would have done normally.
Claussen joined fellow Southern Oregon alums Chelsey Gregg and Carly Meister on the Vikings’ coaching staff, both of whom also played for Kennedy at SOU.
Claussen and Meister were part of the same 2016 SOU class that played three seasons for Kennedy before finishing as NAIA Division II national runners-up as seniors. Claussen was named an NAIA Division II First-Team All-American that season, when she was also named the Cascade Collegiate Conference Player of the Year.
Claussen, who also led SOU to conference regular-season and tournament titles as a senior, became the first SOU player to record at least 1,000 points and 500 assists in her career. Additionally, Claussen set the SOU single-season record with 100 3-pointers made during her senior season, and finished her career ranked second all time in assists (522) and three-pointers made (204).
Since graduating from SOU, Claussen played two years of professional basketball, first with the Woodville Warriors of the Australian Premier League in 2017, and then for Partizan 1953 within the WABA League and the First Women’s Basketball League of Serbia in 2018. Claussen and Partizan 1953 went 8-3 while finishing as runners-up in the First Women’s Basketball League during her year on the team. Claussen was also named the Premier League Basketball SA Round 9 Player of the Week for the Woodville Warriors in 2017, when she averaged 18.1 points and 4.7 assists per game.
Claussen first got a taste of coaching while serving as the head coach of the Boys JV team at her alma mater Santa Cruz High School in Santa Cruz, Calif., during the 2016-17 season. Claussen also coached at the Basketball Jones camp at Willow Glen High School in San Jose, Calif., in 2018, and helped at Southern Oregon’s camps in 2012 and 2013.
