ALLIANCE, Ohio – Junior point guard Jaron Crowe (Mentor) scored a career-high 27 points, but the Baldwin Wallace University men's basketball team lost at the University of Mount Union, 90-79, in an Ohio Athletic Conference game in the McPherson Academic and Athletic Complex.
BW, now 5-3 overall and 2-2 in the OAC, has lost two straight. In addition to Crowe for the Yellow Jackets, senior three-time All-OAC forward Kyle Payne (Brunswick) scored 15 points. With his 15 points, Payne now has 1,291 career points and moved ahead of Dick "The Stork" Retherford (1949-52), who had 1,288 points, and moved into 15th place all-tuime. Next up and in 14th place is Ron Myers (1977-80), who had 1,361 points.
Mt. Union, now 6-2 overall and 4-0 in the OAC, has won four straight. The Purple Raiders were led by senior guard T.J. Gillespie with 20 points. He was one of five Mt. Union players in double figures.
In the first half, Mt. Union gained an early, 3-0 lead at 18:09 when sophomore forward Jarrett Ruffin made a three-pointer. After BW's Crowe tied it at 3-3 with a trey of his own at 17:56, the Purple Raiders ran off eight straight points to take an 11-3 advantage at 15:49 when Gillespie made a layup.
BW outscored Mt. Union 11-4 to close to 15-14 at 13:04 when senior guard Grant Fairhurst (Ashland) canned his first of three first half triples. But the Purple Raiders had a 16-10 run of their own to build a 31-24 lead at 7:21 when Gillespie made a lauyup. After the Yellow Jackets closed to 33-31 when junior forward Matt Dennis (Spring Hills, Fla./Nature Coast Technical) made a layup, Mt. Union got back-to-back three-pointers from Gillespie to lead 39-31 at 5:29. The teams would trade baskets the rest of the half and the Purple Raiders stilll led by eight at 45-37 at the intermission.
In the second half, BW got close on a number of occassions and finally tied the game at 52-52 with 15:34 left when Dennis made a layup. The Raiders used a 22-14 run to take an eight-point lead at 74-66 with 4:42 left when sophomore guard Evan Keeslar made a layup.
Again BW came back with a 11-5 surge to close to 79-77 when Dennis made another layup. But The Purple Raiders withstood BW's final run and outscored the Yellow Jackets 11-2 to earn the victory.
BW is back in action this Saturday, December 21 when they play at Bethany (W.Va.) College at 1:00 p.m. The Yellow Jackets also travel to San Antanio, Texas on Dec. 29-30 to play two games.
FOR MORE BW SPORTS INFORMATION, please contact Sports Information Director Kevin Ruple by telephone at 440-826-2327 and e-mail at [kruple@bw.edu]kruple@bw.eduor Assistant SID Jeff Miller by phone at 440-826-2780 and email at [jefmille@bw.edu]jefmille@bw.edu. Fans can access the latest BW athletics information at www.bwyellowjackets.com and we invite you to join us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/bwyellowjackets and Twitter at http://twitter.com/bwathletics.
