Sophomore Joey Hurless leads Men's Basketball in 86-79 loss to Mount Union

By Tim Glon

ADA — Sophomore Joey Hurless scored 14 points and dished out a career-high nine assists to lead Ohio Northern in an 86-79 Ohio Athletic Conference men's basketball loss to Mount Union Saturday afternoon at the ONU Sports Center.

The Polar Bears fall to 10-11 overall and are 5-9 in OAC play, while the Purple Raiders improve to 16-5, 12-2.

Northern ended the first half on a 23-10 run to rally from an early 26-12 deficit, then scored the first basket of the second half to take a 37-36 lead.

But MtU scored the next eight points to go up 44-37 and grew the lead to 57-45 with 12:13 left in the game.

Again the Polar Bears rallied, pulling within 67-64 after a basket by senior Isaiah Roux with 7:08 to play.

The Purple Raiders answered with a 11-2 run to regain a 78-66 lead with 3:37 to go and ONU would not have time to recover.

Northern had eight players score six or more points, led by Hurless' 14.

Freshman Travis Feitshans scored 12 points, sophomore Devon Allen added 11 points and senior Lucas Pennington chipped in 10 points for ONU.

Pennington played in his 100th game as a Polar Bear on Saturday.

Mount Union was led by Stevie Griffin with a game-high 22 points.

Ohio Northern made 31-of-66 field goal attempts for 47.0 percent, while the Raiders made 29-of-58 for 50.0 percent.

MtU out-rebounded ONU 40-29.

The Polar Bears will take to the road on Wednesday night with a 7:30 pm contest at Heidelberg.