DELAWARE, Ohio – Ohio Wesleyan University generated runs of 16-0 and 15-0 in the first half en route to an 87-57 victory against Kenyon College on Wednesday night in a North Coast Athletic Conference men's basketball game at Branch Rickey Arena.
The Battling Bishops improved to 8-5 and 3-3 in the NCAC while the Lords dropped to 1-13 and 0-7 in league play.
Elijah Davis led Kenyon with a team-high 14 points while
Ugnius Zilinskas chipped in with 13 on 6-of-11 shooting.
Carter Powell added seven points and a game-high 12 rebounds. Collectively, Kenyon struggled as it shot 33.8 percent from the field, 21.7 from three and a dismal 38.1 percent from the free throw line.
Nearly four minutes into action, Davis canned a pair of long balls while
Ryan O'Neil added a jumper to push the Lords ahead 9-4. Over the next seven-plus minutes, though, the Lords went cold, missing all nine of their shots while turning the ball over five times.
The Battling Bishops used that to get in front. Curtis White and Ethan Stanislawski, who scored a game-high 25 points, each made multiple shots during that 16-0 run while OWU also added four free throws.
Freshman
Christian Watanabe stopped the stretch with a layup at 9:47 and later, Davis hit a jumper from the right elbow to cut the lead to 26-18; however, the Lords could not get any closer.
Over the remainder of the half, the home team went up as many as 23 points (41-18) after free throws from Tim Kiefer. Ohio Wesleyan was pretty efficient at the charity stripe in the opening stanza as it hit 13-of-17 (76.5). By halftime, the Battling Bishops led 45-27.
In the second half, OWU kept things on cruise control as it boosted its advantage to as many as 32 points on five different occasions. Its last came at 1:27 following a free throw from Nick Fontanella which brought the score to 85-53. By game's end, the home team had hit about 51 percent from the field and 41.4 percent from downtown.
Things don't get any easier for the Lords as they host 20th-ranked (D3Hoops.com) and NCAC-leading Wabash College on January 12 at 2 p.m. at Tomsich Arena.
