Aron Thress scores 17, leads Men's basketball to 91-87 victory over Capital
By Tim Glon
ADA — Junior Aron Thress led five Ohio Northern players in double figures with 17 points in a 91-87 men's basketball victory over Capital on Saturday afternoon at the ONU Sports Center.
The Polar Bears win their second consecutive game to improve to 7-10 overall and 4-6 in Ohio Athletic Conference action, while the Crusaders fall to 9-8, 5-5.
Sophomore Ryan Geise scored a career-high 15 points, junior Konnor Baker scored 13 points, freshman Ryan Bruns added 12 points and a team-high eight rebounds and sophomore Nate Burger chipped in 11 points for ONU.
Capital was led by Michael Green with 29 points and Mark Minch with 26 points and nine rebounds.
The Polar Bears came out blistering hot, making their first eight field goal attempts and 18 of their first 22 shots to take a 48-27 lead with 6:12 left in the first half.
But the Crusaders closed the half on a 19-5 run to get within 53-46 at intermission.
A 13-3 run gave CU its largest lead of the day at 71-66 with 11:44 left in the game.
Northern battled back and tied the game at 76-all on a basket by Bruns with 8:29 to play.
A 3-point play by Baker with 2:22 remaining gave ONU the lead for good at 87-84 and a basket by junior Devon Allen with 1:39 to play extended the lead to 89-84.
Two free throws by Green pulled Capital within 89-87 with 49 seconds to play.
Allen missed a 3-pointer with the shot clock winding down, but Thress was there for the putback and Northern led 91-87 with 20 seconds to play.
"Our guys played hard and it was nice to see them get rewarded with a victory," ONU head coach Kevin Byrne said. "We did a nice job of staying with it when Capital came back and made some plays down the stretch to get the win."
The Polar Bears finished the game making 35-of-59 from the floor for 59.3 percent. Capital was 33-of-68 from the floor for 48.5 percent.
CU out-rebounded ONU 36-31.
The Polar Bears will return to action Wednesday night at 7:30 pm when they entertain Otterbein at the ONU Sports Center.
