Dec. 5, 2007

By Steven Wright

TIFFIN — Kurtis Brown made a layup with eight seconds remaining to tie the game at 70-70, but Heidelberg’s Chad Szalay hit a jump shot with three seconds on the clock to give the Student Princes a 72-70 victory over the Polar Bears Wednesday evening at Seiberling Gymnasium.

ONU falls to 4-3 on the year and 1-1 in the Ohio Athletic Conference while HC improves to 5-1, 1-1.

Kyle Gehle paced the Polar Bears with 23 points and six rebounds. Kyle Meyer recorded 13 points and nine boards while Brown had 12 points and six assists.

Brian Schmidt of Heidelberg had game highs of 24 points and 13 rebounds.

Gehle got off to a quick start, scoring eight of the first 16 Polar Bear points, leading ONU to a quick 16-4 lead at the 13:35 mark of the first half.

Each team traded buckets over the next five minutes to take the score to 22-12 before Northern used a 12-4 run to push the lead to 18 with 4:45 to go in the half.

Heidelberg kept fighting though and finished the first half on a 12-5 run of its own to cut the lead to 39-28 at the break.

ONU hit 6-of-12 three pointers in the first half while HC did not make a single three in ten attempts.

The Student Princes used the momentum they gained at the end of the first half to score the first five points of the second half before Meyer hit a jumper off a pass from Ezra Bradshaw to make the score 41-35.

Down 45-44, Andrew Lemon hit a free throw to tie the game for the first time with 12:13 to go and hit a jump shot 26 seconds later to give Heidelerg its first lead of the game.

HC earned its largest lead of game after a Schmidt layup made the score 58-51 with 6:43 left.

The Polar Bears answered with a 17-7 run to take a 68-65 lead with 1:52, but the Student Princes scored the next five to take a two-point lead with fifteen seconds left.

Brown then responded with his layup before Szalay’s heroics.

Heidelberg won the turnover battle 19-9 while scoring 23 points to Northern’s six off turnovers.

The Student Princes also won the battle inside with a 43-39 rebounding advantage and doubled ONU’s points in the paint 48-24.

The Polar Bears finished the game 7-of-21 behind the arc while HC went 0-of-15.

ONU will return home against OAC-foe Baldwin-Wallace on Saturday at 3 pm at the ONU Sports Center.