Box Score

John Carroll built a big first half lead, briefly fell behind in the early stages of the second half, then regained the advantage and finished strong in an 84-77 victory over Ohio Northern Saturday afternoon in an Ohio Athletic Conference match-up held at the DeCarlo Varsity Center.

The victory by the Blue Streaks, combined with Capital's loss to Muskingum, puts John Carroll in sole possession of first place in the OAC with four games remaining on the regular season schedule.

Click here to watch video highlights of this game.

JCU threatened to run away from Ohio Northern early on. When Matt Crozier (Philadelphia, PA, LaSalle College) dropped in a lay-up off a pass from Corey Shontz (Andover, OH, Pymatuning Valley) at the 10:58 mark of the first half, the Streaks went ahead by a 27-13 score.

The Polar Bears would battle back, however, by scoring 20 of the next 27 points. Ezra Bradshaw's lay-up with 4:56 to play in the period brought Ohio Northern to within a single points at 34-33. 

John Carroll would recover and took a 43-36 lead just inside the two minute mark, but the final four points of the half were tallied by Ohio Northern, and the score would stand 43-40 at the break.

Ohio Northern continued its surge in the second half, taking its first lead since the opening minute of the game by scoring the first two points of the period on a lay-up by Kyle Meyer. The Polar Bears still led by two points at 50-48 with 16 minutes to play when John Carroll started the decisive run of the contest.

Starting with a Brian Dandrea jumper at the 15:20 mark and Maurice Haynes' jumper with 9:58 remaining in regulation, JCU turned a two-point deficit into a 68-56 lead.

The closest Ohio Northern would get the rest of the way would be six points at 82-76 with 1:16 left, but JCU held the Bears to a single point in the final 76 seconds.

John Carroll (16-4, 12-2 OAC), which won its 12th consecutive game, was paced by a game-high 20 points from Haynes, who was 7-10 from the field and 6-6 from the free throw line. Rudy Kirbus (Willoughby Hills, OH, Cleveland St. Ignatius) added 19 points, while Chris Zajac (Brecksville, OH, Brecksville-Broadview Heights), Crozier and Dandrea also scored in double figures with 14, 13 and 10 points, respectively. 

The victory was also head coach Mike Moran's 299th of his career at John Carroll.

Ohio Northern (15-6, 10-4 OAC) was led by 15 points from Jake Cannan, 14 from Meyer and 13 from Kurtis Brown. The Polar Bears were forced into 31 turnovers on the day.