Ryan Bruns breaks 36-year old school blocked shots record, leads Men's Basketball to 73-66 victory at Mount Union
By Tim Glon
ALLIANCE — Junior Ryan Bruns (Chickasaw/Marion Local) broke Ohio Northern's 36-year old blocked shots record, leading the men's basketball team to a 73-66 victory at Mount Union on Saturday afternoon at the McPherson Center.
Bruns blocked three shots in the contest, giving him 172 for his 3-year career, breaking the previous school record of 171 set by Stan Mories from 1979-82.
Bruns also scored 30 points and grabbed nine rebounds for the Polar Bears (12-5 overall, 7-3 Ohio Athletic Conference).
Senior Nate Burger (Dayton/Alter) added 21 points and senior Joey DiOrio (Columbus/Watterson) added 14 points and eight rebounds for ONU.
The Purple Raiders (9-7, 5-4) were led by Nathan Bower-Malone with 33 points.
With his 30-point effort, Bruns now has 985 career points in 66 games and needs just 15 more to become the 38th member of ONU's 1,000-Point Club.
Mount Union led 63-62 with 2:42 left in the game before Burger scored seven straight for the Polar Bears.
His 3-pointer gave ONU the lead for good at 65-63 with 2:28 to go and his two free throws made it 67-63 at the 2:01 mark.
A Burger layup with 1:22 remaining gave Ohio Northern a 69-64 lead and a layup by Bruns with 48 seconds left gave ONU a 71-64 advantage.
Burger then iced the game with a pair of free throws with 28 seconds to play.
Ohio Northern was 22-of-53 from the floor for 41.5 percent and made 8-of-26 from 3-point range for 30.8 percent for the game, while Mount Union made 19-of-63 field goals for 30.2 percent and was 12-of-34 from 3-point range for 35.3 percent.
Northern was an impressive 21-of-23 from the foul line for 91.3 percent, led by a 10-for-10 effort from Bruns and a 9-for-10 effort by Burger.
Ohio Northern out-rebounded Mount Union 43-35.
The Polar Bears will return to action Wednesday evening when they travel to Wilmington for a 7 pm contest at Raizk Arena.