GAMBIER, Ohio – The Kenyon College Lords had the Ohio Wesleyan University Battling Bishops pinned down early in Saturday's North Coast Athletic Conference men's basketball game at Tomsich Arena. The No. 17-ranked Bishops got off the mat, however, and rallied in the second half to record an 82-60 victory.

Kenyon (4-4, 1-3 NCAC) jumped out to an 18-6 lead in the first ten minutes of the game. During that span, the Lords defense coaxed Ohio Wesleyan into a 2-for-20 shooting slump. At one point, OWU players missed ten straight shots.

At the other end of the floor, Carter Powell tossed in four points for Kenyon and both Ryan O'Neill and Matt Shifrin connected on three-point shots to help the Lords build the 12-point advantage.

OWU, a team that averaged more than 87 points per game, couldn't be held down for long. The Bishops started chipping away at the Kenyon lead and, despite shooting 11-of-39 (28.2 percent) for the half, trailed by just two points (31-29) at the intermission.

The Bishops died by the three-pointer in the first half, shooting just 4-of-20 from long range. They lived by the three in the second half, though, shooting 9-of-18. The backcourt tandem of Nate Axelrod and Seth Clark, a pairing that had just 10 points in the first 20 minutes of play, finished the game with a combined 36. Clark ended up going 5-of-10 from long range to tally a game-high 21 points. Axelrod added 15 points and seven assists, while Jaret Gerber contributed 17 points and 10 rebounds.

As the Battling Bishops (8-1, 4-0 NCAC) got things going in the second half, the Lords sputtered. Alex Laub scored the first bucket of the second stanza, but after that the Kenyon men hit a 2-for-13 skid that allowed OWU to move ahead 55-38 with 10:43 left in the game. A few moments later, a layup from Will Sigl cut the deficit to 15 points, but the Lords would never get any closer the rest of the way.

Sigl wound up scoring a dozen points and grabbing eight rebounds, which were both career-high marks for the senior forward. Laub added another 12 points and five rebounds to the Kenyon totals, while O'Neill and Shifrin finished with 11 and 9 points, respectively.

Kenyon will try to bounce back from the loss with one more game before the holiday break. Tuesday, they'll head to New Wilmington, Pennsylvania for a 7:30 pm non-conference contest against the Westminster College Titans, a team that's 8-1, but will be coming off a ten-day break since it last played a game.