Balanced attack leads Men’s Basketball to 64-60 road victory over Wilmington

WILMINGTON — Three players scored in double figures to lead the Ohio Northern men's basketball team to a 64-60 over OAC foe Wilmington on Wednesday night at Fred Raizk Arena.

With the win, Ohio Northern is now 8-6 overall and 4-3 in the OAC, while Wilmington falls to 6-7 overall and 5-3 in conference, breaking the three-way tie for first place in the league.

Senior Scott Schnelle posted a game-high 15 points and grabbed six rebounds. Sophomore Branden Rushton added 13 points and sophomore Jared Horstman scored 12.

Both also pulled down five boards.

The game was tight throughout, featuring 11 ties and five lead changes. The Polar Bears would jump out to a 16-10 lead early on a 3-pointer by senior Jason Faykosh.

The Quakers would battle back and tie the score at 25 heading into the half.

The teams would trade buckets to begin the second half before Northern used a 5-0 spurt to take a 35-30 lead with 15:27 left to play.

Wilmington would respond with five unanswered points to knot the score at 35 with 13:29 remaining.

The teams would continue to even each other as play continued with five more ties and three lead changes in the next 10 minutes of action.

With 2:49 left and the score tied at 55, the Polar Bears used a 7-0 run to take the lead for good.

Horstman, Schnelle and freshman Lucas Pennington all scored two points while junior Taylor Kuhlman added a free throw to give ONU their largest lead of the game.

The Quakers would score a basket to cut the deficit to 52-57 with 24 seconds left, but Rushton iced the game nailing two free-throws with seven seconds left.

Antonio Bowman led Wilmington with 14 points while Brandon Candella posted a double-double with 10 points and 12 rebounds.

Northern shot 21-of-49 (42.9 percent) from the field while Wilmington was 22-of-57 (38.6 percent).

The Polar Bears held the advantage in 3-pointers going 7-of-16 (43.8 percent) from behind the arc compared to 5-of-23 (21.7 percent) for the Quakers.

Northern scored 12 points off of turnovers compared to Wilmington's six.

Ohio Northern will be in action again on Saturday when they host Baldwin-Wallace at 4 p.m. as a part of a doubleheader with the women.