Men's Basketball celebrates Senior Night with 98-55 victory over Otterbein

By Tim Glon

ADA — The Ohio Northern men's basketball team celebrated Senior Night with a 98-55 victory over Otterbein on Wednesday night at the ONU Sports Center.

The Polar Bears improve to 16-8 overall and are 14-3 in the Ohio Athletic Conference, while the Cardinals fall to 7-17, 3-14.

Northern's win sets up a battle for the OAC Regular Season title on Saturday when the Polar Bears will travel to league-leading and No. 9-ranked Marietta.

Senior Aron Thress (Lancaster/Amanda Clearcreek) had a game-high 22 points, senior Konnor Baker (Ada) scored 20 points, senior Devon Allen (Lima/Senior) and junior Nate Burger (Dayton/Alter) had 16 points each and sophomore Ryan Bruns (Chickasaw/Marion Local) added 10 points for ONU.

Senior Joey Hurless (Van Wert) did not score, but dished out 12 assists for the Polar Bears.

Ohio Northern celebrated its four seniors in a pregame ceremony and got off to a sluggish start in the game.

Trailing 18-14 with 5:45 gone in the contest, the Polar Bears rattled off 19 unanswered points to take a 33-18 lead with 7:26 left in the half.

The run grew to 31-5 as ONU led 45-23 with 3:00 left in the half.

Northern led 45-29 at intermission.

Northern started the second half on an 18-2 run to take a commanding 61-31 lead with 14:31 left in the game.

ONU's largest lead of the game came at 98-53 with 1:12 to go on a 3-pointer by sophomore Kevin Austin (Cincinnati/Winton Woods).

Otterbein was led by Cameron Arminio with 13 points.

Ohio Northern made 39-of-71 field goal attempts for 54.9 percent and was 14-of-32 from 3-point range for 43.8 percent.

OU was 18-of-67 from the floor for 26.9 percent and was 7-ofp39 from beyond the arc for 17.9 percent.

Northern won the rebounding battle by a 50-31 margin.