Gehle, Cannan, Brown leads Ohio Northern at No. 22 Trinity (Tex.)

Dec. 30, 2007

By Tim Glon

SAN ANTONIO, Tex. — A 23-2 run midway through the contest lifted No. 22-ranked Trinity (Tex.) past a cold-shooting Ohio Northern 75-58 Sunday afternoon in the second round of the Trinity/Southwestern Holiday Tournament at Sams Gymnasium.

The Polar Bears fall to 8-4, while the Tigers improve to 9-1.

Kyle Gehle, Jake Cannan and Kurtis Brown led the Polar Bears with 24, 10 and 10 points, respectively.

Both Gehle and Cannan were also named to the All-Tournament Team.

Tournament MVP Patrick Roninson scored 17 points to lead Trinity.

Trinity took control of the game by ending the first half on a 13-0 run, turning a 30-28 lead with 3:43 to play into a 43-28 advantage at intermission.

The Polar Bears made just 17-of-50 field goal attempts for 34 percent, while the Tigers made 25-of-64 shots from the floor for 39.1 percent.

Trinity out-rebounded Ohio Northern 47-25.

"We knew that rebounding would be a big factor and we just couldn't get it done inside," ONU head coach Jeff Coleman said. "This was disappointing because we thought we would play betetr than we did. Kyle did a nice job scoring for us or this game would have been much worse."

Northern struggled from the floor in the first half, making only 6-of-23 shots for 26.3 percent.

After Jake Cannan converted on ONU's first possession of the second half, the Tigers rattled off the game's next 10 points to go up 53-30 with 15:14 left in the game.

The lead grew to as many as 28 at 66-38 with 10:22 remaining in the game before ONU ended the game on a 20-9 run.

In the other second round game on Sunday, Wabash (Ind.) defeated Southwestern (Tex.) 69-64.

In the first day of the two-day tournament, Ohio Northern defeated Southwestern (Tex.) 62-44 on Saturday.

Ohio Northern is now 13-3 in regular season tournament play in three seasons under Coleman, which includes titles at the Albion (Mich.) Classic and the San Francisco Classic in 2005-06 and the Elizabethtown (Pa.) Tournament and the Wooster Mose Hole Classic in 2006-07.

The Polar Bears will take 10 more days off before returning to Ohio Athletic Conference action on Jan. 9 at Wilmington.