Box Score

A fantastic first half of play by John Carroll proved to be enough to carry the host team to an 86-71 victory over Baldwin-Wallace in the 100th meeting between the two Cleveland area schools staged tonight at the DeCarlo Varsity Center.

The win also enabled the Blue Streaks to set a school record with their 15th consecutive victory, and guaranteed a share of the Ohio Athletic Conference regular season title. John Carroll holds a one game lead over Capital in the OAC standings with one game left to play. 

The Blue Streaks travel to Wilmington Saturday, needing a win to claim the OAC title outright as well as the #1 seed in next week's OAC Tournament, while Capital hosts crosstown rival Otterbein. A Capital win and a JCU loss would make the two teams co-champions of the regular season, but the Crusaders would be the #1 seed in the tournament based on a tiebreaker.

Note: SportsTime Ohio will air the John Carroll vs. Baldwin-Wallace men's basketball game three times -- Wednesday, Feb. 18 at 11:00 p.m., and Thursday, Feb. 19, at both 6:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. Check dish or satelitte channel listings for SportsTime Ohio (STO).

John Carroll was electric in the early going, building leads of 8-0, 17-1 and 40-14 in the first half behind swarming defense and lights out shooting. With 6:43 remaining in the peiod, the Blue Streaks had made 15-23 (.652) from the field, including 7-10 (.700) from three point range.

Eventually, John Carroll would take a 49-23 lead into the locker room.

John Carroll never looked back in the second half, although it was not an easy-flowing 20 minutes for the Blue Streaks. JCU built its largest lead of the game at 28 points (57-29) with 17:48 left when Tyler Kirsch made a jump shot 

Baldwin-Wallace would steadily chip at the lead, and cut it down to 12 with just over a minute to play. John Carroll would make free throws down the stretch to push the margin back up to 15 by the time the buzzer sounded, negating a strong second half by Andrew Bene of BW, who scored all of his team high 19 points after the break.

John Carroll (19-4, 15-2 OAC) was outscored 48-37 in the second half, but its first half effort was more than enough for the Blue Streaks to improve to 9-0 at home this season. Rudy Kirbus scored 13 of his game-high 20 points in the second half, and was joined in double figures by Maurice Haynes and Chris Zajac who tallied 12 and 10, respectively. 

By virtue of its victory, John Carroll can claim at least a share of the OAC crown fors the eighth time in program history.

Besides Bene, Baldwin-Wallace (7-17, 3-14 OAC) received 13 points from Zane Meeder and 11 from Paul Glass.