Feb. 6, 2006

By Zach Stipe

WESTERVILLE — Five Polar Bears notched double figures for the third straight game as the Ohio Northern men’s basketball team set a season-high for scoring in a 103-74 win over Otterbein at the Rike Center.

ONU improved to 12-8 overall and 8-5 in the Ohio Athletic Conference, while Otterbein dropped to 5-15 overall and 4-9 in the OAC.

Sophomore Kyle Meyer led all scorers with 23 points on 8-of-9 shooting and also grabbed a game-high nine rebounds.

Junior Jake Cannan scored 14 points and dished out five assists. Senior Kyle Gehle had 13 points, junior Mitch Anderson added 11 points and junior Steve Young scored a career-high 10 points.

Otterbein was led by Brian Pollock’s 20 points and Ross Banaszak’s 15 points and five assists.

The Polar Bears jumped out to a big lead right from the start.

Cannan hit back-to-back jumpers to put ONU up 4-0 1:39 into the game.

Less than seven minutes into the game, Northern held a 20-6 lead after junior Kurtis Brown drilled a 3-pointer at the 13:36 mark.

The Polar Bears were already up 48-28 when Meyer hit a layup with 1:54 left in the half to jump start a 12-3 ONU run to end the half.

Gehle followed with a jumper and Anderson made a 3-pointer, a jump shot and nailed two free throws to give Northern a 60-31 lead at intermission.

Northern led by as much as 33 points when Loudon Hammersmith made a layup to put ONU up 66-33 two minutes into the second half.

The Polar Bears shot 66.7 percent (24-of-36) from the field in the first half and 66.1 percent (39-of-59) for the game. For the game, ONU made 46.7 percent (7-of-15) from behind the arc.

The Cardinals shot 43.2 percent (32-of-74) from the field and 22.7 percent (5-of-22) on 3-pointers for the game.

Northern held a 39-28 lead on rebounds and a commanding 52-26 edge on points in the paint.

Ohio Northern returns to action this Saturday when it hosts John Carroll at 3 p.m. at the ONU Sports Center.