Men's Basketball pulls away late for 71-63 win over Otterbein

Kyle Meyer

By Patrick Massara

| Box Score |

ADA – The Ohio Northern men’s basketball pulled out a 71-63 win at home over Otterbein Wednesday night in the ONU Sport Center.

Junior Kyle Myer led ONU with team-highs in points and rebounding with 17 and seven respectively.

The Polar Bears improve their record to 15-5 overall and 10-3 in the Ohio Athletic Conference while the Cardinals move to 3-17 overall and 1-12 in the OAC.

Otterbein came out of the gate strong as it opened up a 17-10 lead with 12:30 remaining in the first half when Brice Rausch hit a 3-point shot.

The Polar Bears came back and took a 21-19 lead when Loudan Hammersmith hit a jump shot in the paint with 8:43 remaining.

Senior Jake Cannan gave Ohio Northern a lift with 5:44 remaining in the half as he took a pass from Kurtis Brown in transition and threw down a dunk to put ONU ahead 25-24.

Freshman Scott Schnelle ended the half on a good note for ONU as he received a pass from Sean Whitney and slammed home a two-handed dunk with 25 seconds remaining for a 36-32 lead heading into intermission.

ONU held the lead until Rausch hit another trey with 12:11 remaining in the second half to give OC a 50-49 lead.

Brown gave the Polar Bears the lead right back as he finished two consecutive fast break lay ups as the second came with 10:55 remaining for a 53-50 lead.

Meyer gave ONU a five-point lead with 3:53 remaining in the game as he stole the ball from OC guard Dan Kessler and took it all the way for a lay up and a 59-54 lead.

Ezra Bradshaw gave ONU its first double-digit lead of the game as he converted a pair of free throws with 43 seconds remaining to push the lead to 69-59.

Ohio Northern was able to dribble out the final 19 seconds of the game for a 71-63 win.

Bradshaw scored 14 points for ONU while Cannan put up 13 points as well.

Brown had a team-high six rebounds.

As Cardinals’ guard Brian Pollock went, so did the Cardinals as the OAC-scoring leader put up 14 first-half points compared to only four in the second for a game-high 18 points.

Rauch scored 16 points for OC including a game-high eight assists.

The Cardinals began 6-of-9 from 3-point range and then struggled to go 2-of-8 for the remainder of the contest.

“We were able to hang in there and get it done,” ONU head coach Jeff Coleman said. “Coach Reynolds put up a great zone against our offense. Otterbein gave us a tough game but we were able to pull out a win.”

The Polar Bears travel to OAC co-leader John Carroll Saturday afternoon for a game at 2 pm.