Women's story is below -
Ohio Northern men's basketball team dropped a 79-70 decision to Baldwin Wallace on Thursday night at the ONU Sports Center.
The Polar Bears (4-16 overall, 0-13 Ohio Athletic Conference) got 20 points and nine rebounds from senior Daniel Donner (Bellville/Northmor).
Senior All-American Ryan Bruns (Chickasaw/Marion Local) added 12 points, junior Caleb Bryan (Pittsburgh, Pa./Montour) had 10 points and nine rebounds and sophomore Colton Bachman (Piqua) chipped in 10 points in the contest for ONU.
The Yellow Jackets (14-6, 8-5) were led by Jay Battle with 17 points.
Bruns scored in the paint with 6:35 gone in the game to give Ohio Northern an early 10-9 lead.
BW answered with a 10-2 run to go up 19-12 just 2:50 later.
The Yellow Jacket advantage swelled to 38-18, but ONU ended the half on an 11-2 run over the final 3:41 to climb within 40-29 at intermission.
Northern then scored the first four points of the second half to complete the 15-2 run and make it 40-34 with 17:39 left to play.
Freshman Daniel Unruh (Elida) scored at the 12:58 mark to get ONU within 46-41 and a pair of free throws by Bryan at the 8:07 mark trimmed the deficit to 55-51.
Baldwin Wallace scored the next six points to extend its lead to 61-51 with 6:51 to go and the Polar Bears would not get within six points the rest of the way.
"I was really happy with our energy in the second half," ONU head coach Rich Bensman said. "We were up and down in the first half and seemed to lose our energy on defense midway through the first half. Things got away from us right then, but we battled back and gave ourselves a chance to win the game in the second half."
Ohio Northern made 24-of-58 field goals for 41.4 percent and were 6-of-18 from 3-point range for 33.3 percent, while Baldwin Wallace made 27-of-50 shots from the floor for 54.0 percent and was 11-of-25 from three for 44.0 percent.
ONU won the rebounding battle by a 39-30 margin.
The Polar Bears will return to action on Saturday when they travel to No. 8-ranked Marietta for a 3 pm contest in the second game of a women's-men's doubleheader at Ban Johnson Fieldhouse.
WOMEN'S GAME
Ohio Northern women's basketball team fell 70-45 at Baldwin Wallace on Thursday evening at Ursprung Gymnasium.
The Polar Bears (11-9 overall, 5-8 Ohio Athletic Conference) were led by nine points from senior Tory Wyss (Ada) and eight points from and senior Alyssa Manley (Lima/Bath).
The Yellow Jackets (15-5, 9-4) got 14 points from Kasey Hughes and 11 points from Lilly Edwards.
Sophomore Sydney Ward (Columbus/Upper Arlington) scored with 2:46 left in the half to get ONU within 19-16.
But BWU led 22-16 at halftime and scored the first 13 points of the third quarter to complete the 16-0 run and take a 35-16 lead with 3:28 gone in the half.
Northern answered with a 10-0 run to get within 35-26 with 1:26 left in the quarter.
Hughes made two free throws with 5:59 left in the game to increase the BWU lead to 57-37 and ONU would not get within 17 points the rest of the way,
Senior Jenna Dirksen (Beavercreek/Carroll) finished the game with seven points and now has 978 points in her 107 career games as a Polar Bear.
She needs just 22 points to become the 16th player in ONU women's basketball history to score 1,000 career points.
Ohio Northern made 16-of-53 field goals for 30.2 percent and were 5-of-15 from 3-point range for 33.3 percent, while Baldwin Wallace was 24-of-59 from the floor for 40.7 percent and made 13-of-28 from beyond the arc for 46.4 percent.
ONU out-rebounded BWU 41-35 behind balanced performance as five different Polar Bears had five boards each.
The Polar Bears will return to action on Saturday when they travel to Marietta for a 1 pm contest in the first game of a women's-men's doubleheader at Ban Johnson Fieldhouse.
