Junior Ryan Bruns becomes 38th member of ONU's 1,000-Point Club as Men's Basketball falls at Wilmington 95-77

By Tim Glon

WILMINGTON — Junior Ryan Bruns (Chickasaw/Marion Local) became the 38th member of Ohio Northern's 1,000-Point Club in a 95-77 men's basketball loss at Wilmington on Wednesday evening at Raizk Arena.

Bruns scored 28 points in the contest, giving him 1,013 in just 67 games.

He got points 1,000 and 1,001 with a pair of free throws at the 10:46 mark of the contest.

The Polar Bears (12-6 overall, 7-4 Ohio Athletic Conference) also got 18 points from senior Nate Burger (Dayton/Alter) and 17 points from senior Joey DiOrio (Columbus/Watterson).

"I am very happy for Ryan," ONU head coach Rich Bensman said. "He has had a terrific career at Ohio Northern and is very deserving of the honors he is receiving and the milestones he has reached. He works very hard and is a great, humble teammate."

The Quakers (8-9, 4-7) had four players in double figures in scoring, led by Nathan Scott with 23.

The hot-shooting Quakers used a 10-2 run to open the second half and take a 55-39 lead with 16:14 to play.

The lead grew to 73-54 with 9:45 left in the game.

Back-to-back threes by Bruns and DiOrio trimmed the deficit to 79-67 with 7:17 to play.

But ONU would only make one field goal in the next five minutes as the Quakers would build the lead back to 89-72 with 2:52 to go.

"We need to do a better job defensively," Bensman said. "It's tough to win when you give up 95 points in a game, obviously. We also need to focus more on doing what we need to do on offense. We were only 9-of-25 in the second half and part of that was because our offensive execution was poor."

Ohio Northern was 24-of-53 from the floor for 45.3 percent and made 9-of-24 from 3-point range for 37.5 percent for the game, while Wilmington made 31-of-62 field goals for 50.0 percent and was 14-of-29 from 3-point range for 48.3 percent.

Each team finished with 33 rebounds.

The Polar Bears will return to action Saturday afternoon when Capital comes to the ONU Sports Center for a 2 pm contest.