Men's Basketball suffers cold spells, falls to No. 21 Wooster 61-52

By Tim Glon

ADA — The Ohio Northern men's basketball team suffered two long scoring droughts and shot just 27.5 percent from the floor in a 61-52 loss to No. 21-ranked Wooster on Sunday afternoon at the ONU Sports Center.

The Polar Bears (2-2) led 30-23 with three minutes left in the first half when the Scots (4-0) scored the final seven points of the period to tie the game at 30-all at intermission.

CW then scored the first six points of the second half to lead 36-30 with 16:53 left in the game.

ONU battled back with a 13-2 run, keyed by five points from Junior Austin Allemeier (Lima/Elida), to lead 43-38 with 9:40 left in the game on a free throw by sophomore Caleb Bryan (Pittsburgh, Pa./Montour).

But Wooster would outscore Ohio Northern 16-3 over the next 8:34 to take a 54-46 lead with 1:06 remaining.

The Polar Bears would finish the game shooting 19-of-69 from the floor for 27.5 percent and were just 4-of-22 from beyond the 3-point arc for 18.2 percent.

"You can't shoot 27 percent from the floor and 18 percent from three against a quality opponent and win the game," ONU head coach Rich Bensman said. "But even though we shot the ball poorly and went through two long scoring droughts, we still had an opportunity down the stretch to defeat a nationally-ranked opponent. That's something to build on for our younger players."

Allemeier led ONU in scoring with 10 points and freshman Daniel Unruh (Elida) added nine points for ONU.

Senior All-American Ryan Bruns (Chickasaw/Marion Local) scored eight points and grabbed a game-high nine rebounds and sophomore Colton Bachman (Piqua) scored eight points for Ohio Northern.

Wooster was led by Danyon Hempy with a game-high 22 points.

Northern out-scored Wooster 14-7 over a span of 6:52 to break a 16-all tie and take a 30-23 lead with 2:58 left in the first half.

The Scots finished the game 21-of-61 from the floor for 39.3 percent and made 3-of-12 three-pointers for 25 percent.

ONU won the rebounding battle 47-46 and each team had 12 turnovers.

The Polar Bears will take to the road on Wednesday with a 7 pm contest at Thomas More (Ky.)