Men's Basketball falls to Mount Union 80-70 in OAC opener
By Scott Beaton
ADA — The Ohio Northern men's basketball team opened the Ohio Athletic Conference portion of its schedule with an 80-70 loss to Mount Union at the ONU Sports Center Saturday afternoon.
The Polar Bears are now 3-3 overall and 0-1 in OAC play and the Purple Raiders improved to 6-1 on the season and 1-0 in conference action.
Junior Austin Allemeier (Elida) was 5-of-7 from 3-point range en route to a 15-point, four-rebound, and three-assist performance to lead ONU.
Senior All-American Ryan Bruns (Chickasaw/Marion Local) had his 19th career double-double with 16 points, 11 rebounds and three steals while senior Daniel Donner (Bellville/Northmor) had 10 points and seven rebounds.
Northern opened the game with a 15-11 run before junior Caleb Bryan (Pittsburgh, Pa./Montour) made four consecutive field goals attempts for ONU, making the Polar Bear lead 23-16 with 8:07 left in the half.
Mount Union rallied to take a 28-25 late in the first half, but Ohio Northern responded by retaking the lead 32-31 heading into the intermission.
In the first 12 minutes of the second half, the Purple Raiders held a largest lead of six points and the Polar Bears led by as many as five, with ONU taking a 60-58 lead at the 7:24 mark.
MtU then launched a 16-1 run to take control of the game at 74-61 with 2:15 to go.
Northern shot 24-for-51 from the field for 47.1 percent and 10-for-18 from 3-point territory while Mount made 23-of-53 from the floor for 43.4 percent and 10-of-28 on 3-pointers for 35.7 percent.
The Purple Raiders also made 24-of-30 (80.0 percent) from the free throw line to the 12-of-19 (63.2 percent) for the Polar Bears.
Ohio Northern outrebounded Mount Union by a 34-30 margin.
The Polar Bears will return to the court Wednesday at Wilmington for a 7 p.m. contest.
