Gehle joins the 1,000-Point Club as ONU tops Southwestern (Tex.) 62-44

Dec. 29, 2007

By Tim Glon

SAN ANTONIO, Tex. — Kyle Gehle became the 34th member of Ohio Northern's 1,000-Point Club Saturday afternoon, leading the Polar Bears to a 62-44 victory over Southwestern (Tex.) in the first round of the Trinity/Southwestern Holiday Tournament at Sams Gymnasium.

Gehle scored a game-high 18 points in the game, giving him 1,016 for his career.

Jake Cannan recorded his third career double-double with 10 points and 10 rebounds, Sam Bastian had his first career double-double with 13 points and a career-high 10 rebounds and Kurtis Brown chipped in 12 points for ONU.

Gehle entered the game with 998 points and got his 1,000th point on a three-pointer just 13 seconds into the game.

The Polar Bears improve to 8-3, while the Pirates fall to 5-4.

Northern extended its 31-21 halftime lead to 43-25 with a 12-4 run over the first 3:11 of the second half.

Back-to-back three-pointers by Gehle and Bastian increased the Polar Bear advantage to 52-31 with 9:07 to play.

SU would not get closer than 15 points the rest of the way.

"I was very pleased with our effort," ONU head coach Jeff Coleman said. "We were coming off a long break for Christmas and were rusty on offense, with too many turnovers. We were solid defensively and did a good job on the boards.

"It was good to see Kyle get his 1,000th point. He's been a big part of our program the last four years and that's a great accomplishment."

Northern scored the game's first 12 points and led 12-0 until the Pirates got their first points with 13:41 left in the half.

Southwestern answered with a 16-2 run to take a 16-14 advantage with 9:37 left in the half.

ONU would regain the lead for good with a 9-0 run, keyed by a jake Cannan three-pointer, three free throws by Kurtis Brown and a fast-break layup by Ezra Bradshaw, to go back up 23-16 with 6:22 left in the first stanza.

Another fast-break layup, this one by Steve Young, extended the run to 14-1 and gave ONU a 28-17 lead with 2:52 left in the half.

The Polar Bears made 23-of-56 field goals for 41.1 percent and were 11-of-26 from three-point range for 42.3 percent.

The Pirates were 18-of-52 from the floor for 34.6 percent and were just 3-of-18 from three-point range for 16.7 percent.

Northern out-rebounded Southwestern 42-28.

Travis Barber led Southwestern in scoring with eight points.

The two schools combined for 44 turnovers with ONU having 24 and SU committing 20.

In the other first round game on Saturday, No. 22-ranked Trinity (Tex.) defeated Wabash (Ind.) 72-66.

Ohio Northern returns to action on Sunday against Trinity at 5 pm (EST). Wabash and Southwestern will square off in the first game at 2 pm on Sunday.