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John Carroll University Athletics

home of the Blue Streaks
Henry Raynor vs. MTU
Ben Peskar
The Blue Streaks now control their own destiny in the OAC.
72
Mount Union MTU 16-2,9-2 OAC
74
Winner John Carroll JCU 16-2,10-1 OAC
Mount Union MTU
16-2,9-2 OAC
72
Final
74
John Carroll JCU
16-2,10-1 OAC
Winner
Score By Periods
Team 1 2 F
Mount Union MTU 36 36 72
John Carroll JCU 37 37 74

Game Recap: Men's Basketball | | Mike Patterson, Staff Writer

In Front of Huge Crowd, Men's Basketball Vanquishes the Purple Raiders

UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS – On a wintry Wednesday evening, the #3 D3hoops.com Mount Union Purple Raiders visited the #8 John Carroll Blue Streaks in a highly anticipated Ohio Athletic Conference matchup. 

Entering the night, the Purple Raiders and Blue Streaks stood tied atop the conference with identical 9-1 records, though Mount Union won the initial meeting in Alliance, 75-72.

In front of a packed crowd in the Tony DeCarlo Varsity Center, the Blue Streaks got revenge, with an exceptional effort in a 74-72 win. 

"They got us by three at their place, so we wanted revenge," Luke Frazier said. "We've been working really hard to get to this point in the season. We executed, played hard, and did a lot of great things."

With the victory, the Blue Streaks now stand alone atop the OAC with a 10-1 mark in conference play, 16-2 overall. 

The game started with a Collin Gurley layup, which prompted his scorching hot first half start. He scored Mount's first two field goals before Luke Chicone answered with an and-one layup. 

Mount Union fired out to a hot start, as despite Luke Frazier's triple at the 16-minute mark and a Henry Raynor putback layup shortly after, the Raiders answered with a three by Darrell Newsome to move ahead, 19-11, lead with about 14 minutes to go.

John Carroll chipped away to a 24-19 deficit at the midway point of the half, thanks in part to a Will Yontek slash to the bucket. And then, Chase Toppin took over, scoring JCU's next nine points. The guard then assisted a Raynor bucket to give JCU a 28-27 lead with five minutes left in the half. 

Collin Gurley answered with his fifth 3-pointer of the half, giving him 20 points. That was answered by a Luke Frazier midrange jumper to tie the game at 32 with four minutes to play. Just ninety seconds later, Eric Hanna pushed JCU ahead, 35-32. Christian Parker and the Raiders fought back with a late layup, but John Carroll stood ahead at halftime, 37-36.

The second half started out with Chase Toppin finding a cutting Connor O'Toole for a layup. This beautiful play was followed by a 3-point play by Luke Frazier to give the Blue Streaks a 6-point lead.
 
Christian Parker answered with a triple, and a few minutes later, Collin Gurley found a rolling Parker at the rim, which prompted a John Carroll timeout with the lead down to two, 44-42, with 15:03 on the clock. 

Out of the timeout, it was a back-and-forth game. Luke Frazier came out of the timeout hitting a midrange jumper, but Jeffery Mansfield answered right back with a 3-point bucket. Darrelll Newsome later knocked down a big triple, giving Mount Union a 52-49 lead with 12 minutes to go.

As the time ticked under seven minutes, the visitors remained ahead. But then John Carroll got two huge transition baskets, one being a ferocious one-handed slam from Luke Frazier.

After a Christian Parker turnaround jumper to tie the game at 62, Luka Eller roared to score seven consecutive crucial points for the Blue Streaks, moving JCU into the driver's seat, 69-64, with 2:45 to play. 

Mount Union, still showing fight, scored a quick five points prompting a John Carroll timeout. The Purple Raiders later tied it at 70-70 with 1:04 to go. 

The Raiders drew a foul call with 9 seconds left, and split the free throws to move ahead, 71-70. Luke Frazier then got a foul call with 3.9 seconds left. Frazier made the first of a one-and-one. The Purple Raiders tried to ice him with a timeout, but Frazier didn't miss, and JCU moved ahead, 72-71.

On Mount Union's ensuing possession, the visitors turned the ball over and had to foul. Luke Chicone came up big with two made free throws for a 74-71 lead. 

JCU fouled after Mount Union's inbound, and the Raiders split the free throws again (the second due to a lane violation), but could not secure the rebound, so the game ended in a 74-72 thriller.  

Luka Frazier was huge in the 74-72 win as he had a team high 22 points. 

John Carroll also got great contributions from their bigman Henry Raynor. He provided a 14-point, 15-rebound double double.

"We worked really hard in practice the last few days, we knew they would be physical, they have a bunch of big guys," said Raynor. "From a bigs standpoint, we worked on hitting them first, keeping in contact all game, and rebounding all game."

With the huge OAC win tonight, John Carroll remains undefeated at home at 10-0. Tonight, it was a full gym with over 1,700 people in the building.

"This means everything to see everyone here tonight, this is part of the reason I came to JCU, I knew the fans would be here to support us," said Raynor. "The student section was great. It means everything to us. But this is just one game, we just keep moving forward after this. Every day, we need to put in the same amount of work. We can't take our foot off the gas. We need to keep competing and making each other better. We're a young team and not even close to hitting our ceiling. 

The Blue Streaks will be back in action for another OAC matchup on Friday in Columbus against Capital.
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