ADA — The John Carroll Blue Streaks made the long trip to visit the Ohio Northern Polar Bears to start the second half of their OAC schedule on Saturday. 
 

These two teams met in early December in the midst of a tough stretch of games for John Carroll Men's Basketball. After a ferocious last minute comeback wasn't good enough, the Polar Bears would escape University Heights with a narrow 85-84 victory, handing the Streaks their fourth loss in a row.

John Carroll came into this game looking to get revenge. A close and intense game from start to finish would give the Blue Streaks just that in the form of a 64-61 victory. 

The game started very slow with neither team scoring until the Polar Bears knocked down a pair of free throws three minutes into the game. The big man trio of Henry Raynor, Will Yontek, and David Gentry followed up with layups on the next three possessions with Gentry getting fouled, earning him an opportunity at the free throw line, which he cashed in on. ONU quickly took the lead back with back-to-back threes. 

The Polar Bears were on fire from three, knocking down another two from deep, to which Chase Toppin responded by knocking down two of his own. The Blue Streaks found themselves down five with nine minutes remaining in the half. Another three and a layup pushed the ONU lead to double digits and while the Streaks managed to pull themselves back in, Ohio Northern kept doing what was working, sinking another two from deep to maintain a double digit lead two minutes before halftime.

A Sean Collins layup would get it down to 8 but a questionable flagrant foul was called on Luke Frazier the following Polar Bear possession giving them two shots and possession of the ball. Luckily, ONU missed them both and the Blue Streak defense came up with a stop to keep the deficit at eight heading into the locker rooms.

The message from the coaches wasn't hard to understand, as JCU wasn't going to get all eight points back in one possession. 

Coming out of the half, John Carroll was clearly feeling good, with high energy quickly shrinking the deficit before an Aidan Fitzgerald three retook the lead. The Blue Streaks stretched the lead to five before a technical foul called on Ohio Northerns coach would give Gentry two shots at the line and the Blue Streaks the ball. Gentry made both and Toppin followed with a mid range jumper to close out a 19-2 run. 

John Carroll continued to make shots, but so did the Polar Bears, with the JCU lead floating right around 10 points until a Brandon Rose three upped the Blue and Gold lead to 14, their largest of the game with 6:45 left on the clock.

The Polar Bears responded in a huge way with three straight triples, including a four-point play to get their deficit down to just four in a matter of two minutes. The Blue Streaks managed to build the lead back to seven before a 6-0 run by ONU's Jadi Cunningham Jr. would set the score at 62-61 Blue Streaks with a minute and a half remaining. No team would score for the next minute and the Polar Bears would have the ball down one with 30 seconds remaining.

Chase Toppin caused a miss down low and Frazier got fouled after grabbing the rebound sending him to the free throw line with 0.2 seconds left … or so we thought. After making the first free throw, Frazier was stopped by an official timeout to doublecheck how much time was remaining, leaving the Blue Streaks and their fans in complete disbelief. Luckily, the refs got it right the first time and no time was added on. Frazier made the second free throw and John Carroll headed home with their 10th win in a row.

The unsung hero of today's game was undoubtedly Aidan Fitzgerald. While his stats in the box score don't seem to be too much, it was his defensive intensity and overall high energy that helped the Blue Streaks overcome all and win the game.

"Shoutout to Fitz, his stat sheet never tells the whole story about him, the way he carries himself and the overall energy he brings to every game has been huge during this win streak," said Will Yontek

Henry Raynor scored a game-high 15 points and Chase Toppin followed with 13.

Up Next

The Blue Streaks return home this Wednesday for a matchup with the Otterbein Cardinals. Tip-off is set for 7 pm.