Jan. 30, 2008

By Zach Stipe

ADA — Five Polar Bears reached double figures in scoring as the Ohio Northern men’s basketball team defeated Heidelberg 89-72 on Wednesday night at the ONU Sports Center in Ada.

Northern improved to 11-7 overall and 7-4 in the Ohio Athletic Conference, while the Berg dropped to 14-4 overall and 8-3 in the OAC.

Senior Kyle Gehle made 8-of-12 shots to score a team-high 24 points.

Junior Jake Cannan picked up his sixth double-double of the season by scoring 18 points and 11 rebounds. Cannan also added a career-high four blocks as he, junior Loudon Hammersmith and sophomore Kyle Meyer held Heidelberg’s starting front court to just 6-of-16 shooting.

Meyer scored 16 points, while Hammersmith added 12 points as the Polar Bears held a 55-29 edge in points in the paint.

Sophomore Ezra Bradshaw rounded out the double-figures in scoring, pouring in a season-high 10 points.

Junior Kurtis Brown tied a career-high with eight assists as Northern dished out 24 assists as a team.

Heidelberg’s Chad Szalay led the Student Princes with 24 points.

Northern held a 42-39 lead when Cannan was fouled while making a layup at the 16:26 mark in the second half. He made the ensuing free throw to put ONU up 45-39 and spark a 7-0 run.

Bradshaw followed with a jumper and Meyer capped the run by making an easy layup after taking a no-look pass from Brown as Northern took a 49-39 lead with 15:21 left in the game.

Two minutes later, Meyer made another layup and extended Northern’s advantage to 55-44.

With 7:55 left in the game, Gehle buried a 3-pointer to put the Polar Bears up 64-48.

Gehle hit two more 3-pointers in the second half, the last of which put ONU up 77-61 with 3:39 left to play.

Szalay answered by nailing a 3-pointer, stealing the ball and getting fouled in a span of three seconds. He hit his pair of free throws to make the score 77-66 with 3:26 left.

That was as close as the Student Princes came, though, as Northern made 8-of-8 free throws down the stretch.

Both teams traded leads in the first half.

A pair of Szalay free throws put Heidelberg up 33-32 with 1:11 left before halftime.

However Gehle hit a jumper with 48 seconds left and junior Mitch Anderson fed Meyer for a fastbreak layup right before the buzzer sounded for intermission to give ONU a 36-33 halftime lead.

The Polar Bears shot 66.7-percent (18-of-27) in the second half and 57.6 percent (34-of-59) for the game.

Northern also held a 42-32 edge on rebounds.

“We really have been harping on sharing the ball more,” ONU head coach Jeff Coleman said. “We wanted to go inside more, too. We beat a good team.”

Ohio Northern returns to action this Saturday when it travels to Berea to take on Baldwin-Wallace at 3 p.m.