Ezra Bradshaw's career-high 23 leads Men's Basketball in 68-64 loss to No. 14 Capital

Ezra Bradshaw

By Patrick Massara

| Box Score |

ADA – Despite a career-high 23 points for junior Ezra Bradshaw, the Ohio Northern men’s basketball team came up short on Senior Day as they lost to #14 Capital 68-64 Saturday afternoon at the ONU Sports Center.

The Polar Bears move to 16-7 overall and 11-5 in the Ohio Athletic Conference while the Crusaders better their record to 20-3 overall and 13-3 in the OAC.

Capital opened up the game with a 13-4 advantage that was capped off by a Nate Stahl 3-pointer with 13:15 remaining in the half.

Capital opened up its lead to 22-7 when Casey Brown laid it up and in with 9:55 remaining leading to an ONU timeout.

Following the timeout, sophomore Sam Bastian converted a 3-point play followed up by a true 3-point jumper to cut the lead to 24-13 with 8:57 remaining.

Down 31-16 with 3:23 remaining, Bradshaw took over for the Polar Bears as he scored eight points in a 10-0 ONU run capped off when he drained a 3-pointer with eight seconds remaining to cut the score to 31-26.

Jamie Yoder then went coast-to-coast for Capital as he hit a jump shot and a free throw with 0.8 seconds remaining to increase the Crusader’s lead to 34-26 heading into intermission.

Junior Kyle Meyer went on a 6-0 by himself for ONU shortly after the break to cut the CU lead to 36-35 with 18:01 remaining.

Meyer later gave Ohio Northern its first lead of the game at with 16:19 remaining by hitting a pair of free throws for a 39-38 lead.

After a 9-0 Capital run following Meyer’s free throws, ONU countered with an 8-2 run of its own, capped off by a Bradshaw lay up with 8:12 remaining to cut the score to 50-47.

Following up his own lay up at 2:03 remaining, Bradshaw stole the inbounds pass from Quintin Mitchell and hit a fade-away 3-pointer in the corner with 1:55 remaining to bring the score to 61-58.

Bradshaw then scored his seventh point in a row with another lay up to cut the score to 61-60 as 1:15 remained in the game.

Following a Ryan Wood missed free throw, Jake Cannan passed the ball up court to Bastian, who then laid the ball in to bring the CU lead down to 64-62 with 17.3 seconds remaining.

CU’s Jake Fanning would go 4-of-4 down the stretch from the free throw line to seal the win for the Crusaders as the Polar Bears were unable to score enough.   

Bastian and Meyer would also score double-digits for ONU with 14 and 13 points respectively.

Stahl led CU with 19 points while Brown contributed 14 points along with a game-high eight rebounds.

CU was largely aided by their bench as it scored 33 points compared to 20 for ONU.  

“Our guys played hard today but just couldn’t pull it out,” ONU coach Jeff Coleman said. “I give Capital credit for winning today it on the road with a great crowd on hand. We have two more games before the OAC tournament, so we have to work hard to get it going before then.”

Ohio Northern travels to Muskingum on Wednesday for a 7:30 pm game.