After a close home loss on Wednesday evening, the John Carroll men's basketball dropped a physical road contest on Saturday.

Third-ranked John Carroll's comeback bid from nine points down fell short in an 86-81 loss to #8 Marietta at Ban Johnson Arena.

Danny Wallack led the Blue Streaks with 20 points and Antonio Vuyancih added 16. Simon Kucharewicz finished with a double-double, 10 points and 11 rebounds.

A.J. Edwards led all scorers with 21 points and 8 rebounds. Luis Garcia contributed 19 for the Pioneers.

Within one minute of play, Luis Garcia hit a three-pointer to put Marietta on the board first. Just seconds later though, Danny Wallack matched that three.

However, the next few minutes were dominated by Marietta. A.J. Edwards made a quick layup to add two more points for the Pioneers. Then, Brennan McKean had a steal to feed Edwards on an authoritative dunk, making the score 7-3 and firing up all of the Ban Johnson Arena.

Conversely, a Doug Caputo layup, Will Starks jumper, and signature David Linane three was enough to even out the score at 12 with 13:18 left in the first half.

With 11:40 remaining, Antonio Vuyancih was successful from behind the arc to give the Blue Streaks their first lead of the game, 17-15.

Anthony Wallace tied the score back up the following possession, but Vuyancih sunk another three to regain the lead. The Blue Streaks held the lead for the next three and a half minutes, at 9:24 leading by four, 25-21.

Back-to-back three-pointers by Eddy Grenert and Dillion Young, a couple of layups, and two free throws within two minutes allowed the Pioneers to gain their largest lead of the game thus far, winning 34-25 with 6:46 left in the first half.

Marietta held the lead for the next four minutes. With 2:09 to play, Doug Caputo made a layup to tie the game back up at 40, but the Pioneers would promptly regain their lead.

A John Cirillo layup allowed the Blue Streaks to only trail by two, 46-44, going into the second half.

At the end of the first half, Wallack was leading all scorers with 12, but Edwards and Garcia were close behind, both in double figures for the Pioneers. Grenert led all rebounders with seven. A total of 28 fouls were committed in the first half by both teams.

Caputo started the second half of play with a layup to immediately tie the score at 46.

With 18:21 on the clock, Wallack evened out the score at 50. Under a minute later, a three by Wallack leveled out the score once again, but this time, at 55.
For the next five minutes, Marietta went on a 13-4 run to take the largest lead of the day, 68-59.

John Carroll went on their own run the following four minutes to bring the score 68-66 with 7:59 remaining.

The score was within five points in favor of the Pioneers until 4:10 on the clock, when Anthony Wallace hit a three to extend their lead, 79-71.

However, a Cirillo layup swayed the momentum toward the Blue Streaks. His layup was followed by Wallack's fourth three-pointer of the day to make the score 79-76 with 2:21 left to the play.

Edwards retaliated with back-to-back layups on the Pioneers final possessions to make the score 84-78 with 54 seconds left to play.

The Blue and Gold struggled to make shots in the final minute of the game. Vuyancih made a three with nine seconds remaining to cut the lead to three. Young made both his foul shots to secure the win for the Pioneers, 86-81.

The Blue Streaks and the Pioneers both move to 21-2, 14-2 OAC on the season.

John Carroll will travel to Alliance, Ohio on Wednesday, Feb. 17 to take on Mount Union at 7:30 p.m.