Bradshaw scores career-high 16 as Men's Basketball gets impressive 78-62 victory at Wittenberg

Ezra Bradshaw

By Tim Glon

| Box Score |

SPRINGFIELD -- Kurtis Brown scored a game-high 18 points and Ezra Bradshaw added a career-high 16 to lead Ohio Northern to an impressive 78-62 non-conference men's basketball victory at Wittenberg Wednesday evening at the Pam Evans Smith Arena.

The Polar Bears improve to 4-1, while the Tigers fall to 1-3.

“Our guys played their guts out,” ONU head coach Jeff Coleman said. “Everyone was in sync. We just played well. This was a great win for us. Wittenberg is a very good team, a great program with fantastic tradition and well coached. To come in here and win two years in a row is outstanding.”

Kyle Meyer and Sam Bastian each scored 16 points as the four Polar Bears accounted for 66 of ONU's 78 points in the game.

Jake Cannan and Scott Schnelle each added six points to wrap up the ONU scoring, but this was a total team effort on both ends of the floor.

Northern opened the second half with two Meyer baskets and a Brown free throw to go up 49-31 with 17:46 left in the contest.

But the Tigers responded with a 10-2 run to trim the lead to 56-46 with 12:46 remaining.

Ohio Northern then answered with a 12-0 run over the next 4:30 to take control of the ball game.

Brown started the run with a three-pointer, Cannan got a putback to make it 61-46 and Brown got a layup to extend the lead to 63-46 with 9:29 to go.

Bastian put the game out of reach with a steal and dunk at the 8:48 mark and a three-pointer with 8:16 remaining to give the Bears a commanding 68-46 lead.

Northern used a quick 6-0 run on a layup by Bastian and four free throws by Meyer to take an 11-5 lead just 4:18 into the contest.

A 7-0 run midway through the half, capped by a Bastian 3-pointer, gave the Polar Bears a 24-15 lead with 8:10 left in the stanza.

Bradshaw got a layup and a 3-pointer, sandwiched around a basket by a Meyer on the block, to go on a 7-2 lead and go up 33-21 with 3:59 left before intermission.

Another Bastian three gave the Bears a 44-31 lead at halftime.

David Nowicki scored 15 points, Mark Snyder scored 11 and  Clayton Black added 10 for Wittenberg.

Northern was 28 of 48 from the floor for 58.3 percent, while holding Wittenberg to just 38.6 percent of 22 of 57 shooting. ONU won the rebounding battle 33-26 behind six rebounds each from Brown and Meyer.

The Polar Bears will open Ohio Athletic Conference action on Saturday when they travel to Marietta for a 3 pm contest.