Jake Cannan hits four 3s to lead Men's Hoops at Capital

Feb. 16, 2008

By Gary Petit

ADA — Ohio Northern couldn’t overcome a 19-point first half deficit and fell to No. 11 Capital 83-75 in men’s basketball action Saturday afternoon in the Capital Center.

With the win, Capital (20-3, 15-1) clinches an outright OAC title and will be the No. 1-seed in the OAC Tournament. ONU falls to fourth place in the OAC with a 9-7 mark in the conference and 13-10 overall.

Junior Jake Cannan led the Polar Bears with 22 points on a career-high 4-for-4 from beyond the 3-point arc. Cannan also pulled down a game-high eight rebounds and had two blocks.

Sophomore Kyle Meyer was the only other Polar Bear in double figures with 18 points on 8-of-10 shooting.

Capital had three players reach double figures as Ryan Wood led the way with a game-high 24 points. Nate Stahl added 19 points on 5-of-8 from 3-point land while Steve Kyser chipped in with 12 points and five rebounds.

With Northern ahead 6-4 early, Capital went on a 13-2 run, book-ended by two Ryan Wood three pointers to put the Crusaders up 17-8 with 13:05 to play in the first half. Wood scored 11 of Capital’s 13 points during the spurt.

Capital continued its hot shooting, eventually opening up its biggest lead of the game at 33-14 with 5:41 to play in the half.

Northern responded with five quick points from senior Mark Pratt, a jumper by Meyer and a 3-ball from junior Steve Young to cut the lead to nine at 33-24. After a 3-pointer by Stahl halted the run, Cannan connected on his first three of the game with :41 seconds left to send the teams to the locker room with the score 38-31 in favor of Capital.

The second half started with Cannan knocking down a free throw to cut the lead to six, but Capital quickly shoved the margin back to 13 with 16:40 to play on an and-one lay up from Wood and four points from Kyser.

The Capital lead hovered between nine and 15 points for the majority of the half before Cannan’s second 3-pointer cut the lead to eight at 73-65 with 2:21 to play. ONU wouldn’t get any closer as Cannan’s last three came with 20 seconds left to provide the final margin.

Both teams shot the ball well as ONU was 45.2 percent (28-of-62) from the floor while Capital was a modest 42.9 percent (24-of-56). ONU connected on 8-of-21 (38.1 percent) 3-point attempts as CU was 9-of-20 (45 percent) from long.

One difference in the game came at the free throw line where Capital knocked down 26-of-29 attempts (89.7 percent) to Northern’s 11-of-17 (64.7 percent) from the charity stripe.

The Polar Bears will finish the regular season at home with Muskingum at 7:30 pm on Wednesday and Mount Union on Saturday at 3 pm.