The very first basket belonged to Wilmington. The rest of the game belonged to John Carroll.

With seven players scoring in double digits, the Blue Streaks cruised to a 109-81 victory over visiting Wilmington College Saturday afternoon at the Tony DeCarlo Varsity Center.

The win, combined with Marietta's loss at home to Heidelberg, puts John Carroll back in sole possession of first place in the Ohio Athletic Conference with four games left to play in the regular season. JCU (11-3) leads Marietta and Ohio Northern (10-4) by one game.

Christian Jones, who finished the day with a game-high 35 points, opened the game for Wilmington with a three-point field goal. The John Carroll response was to rattle off eight consecutive points. By the time the first half clock hit the 11:50 mark, the Blue Streaks had jumped their lead to double digits. Greg Parella's three-point field goal made the score 25-13 in favor of the home squad.

The Quakers were able to trim the JCU lead down to five points at 30-25 when Jordan Jones dropped in a lay-up with 7:50 to play in the half, but Jackson Sartain made back-to-back three pointers to jump start a 22-4 run by the Blue Streaks.

The only glitch in the program came toward the end of the first half. Trailing 52-29, Wilmington scored the final ten points of the first half and then opened the second half with yet another Jones trey to cut John Carroll's sizable lead down to a manageable ten points at 52-42. 

It took less than five minutes to reverse that downward trend as John Carroll scored 19 of the next 22 points to put the game out of reach. When Matthew Csuhran made a three ball with 15:05 to play, the Blue Streaks' lead had swelled to 71-48. Wilmington never got closer than 18 the remainder of the contest.

John Cirillo led John Carroll (17-4, 11-3 OAC) with 16 points. He was 5-7 from the field, 4-5 from three-point range, and 2-2 from the free throw line. Jimmy Berger had 14 points, while Ryan Berger (13), Allen Stokes (13), Sartain (12), Csuhran (11) and Antonio Vuyancih (10) also had double digits. Stokes had nine rebounds, Brian Papich had three blocks, Emil Hess had three steals, and the combo of Jimmy Berger (7) and Sean Flannery (6) tallied 13 assists.

The Blue Streaks, who remained undefeated at home (8-0) this season with the win, shot 41-75 (.547) from the field and 15-26 (.577) from three-point range for the afternoon.

Jones and Will Patrick (13) were the leading scorers for Wilmington (9-11, 5-9 OAC).

John Carroll will host Baldwin Wallace (15-6, 9-5 OAC) on Wednesday night at the DeCarlo Varsity center. The Yellow Jackets defeated the Blue Streaks, 88-79, in the first meeting between the two crosstown and conference rivals.