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MC men win Ohio Athletic Conference championship

Pioneer men’s hoops claim conference title

A.J. Edwards owned the paint

The Marietta College senior All-American brushed off the Baldwin Wallace defenders with a game-high 28 points and eight rebounds as the top-seeded Pioneers won 83-74 in an Ohio Athletic Conference Tournament men’s basketball final Saturday night at sold-out Ban Johnson Arena.

“It was us Marietta PioNation versus everybody,” said the 6-foot-5 Edwards, who was named the tourney’s Most Valuable Player.

“It’s a team thing,” he added. “It’s a team game. No one person can win the game for a team.”

Anthony Wallace, also a tournament honoree, added 19 points, while Keith Richardson had 14 points for the NCAA Division III eighth-ranked Pioneers (24-4), who won the program’s third OAC tourney title. Non-starters’ RaNeal Ewing and Jack Thome chipped in with eight and seven points, respectively. Ewing also collected seven caroms.

“I do my role,” Wallace said. “I come out and play defense. I hit my open shots and let the rest of the game fall in place.”

With the OAC tourney victory, Jon VanderWal-coached MC — which also claimed the regular-season crown — received an automatic NCAA D3 tournament bid. The Pioneers are scheduled to host a game on a date to be announced.

Sixth-seeded Baldwin Wallace (15-13) was paced by all-tourney honorees’ Jay Battle and Michael Quiring, who tallied 16 and 15 points, respectively. Jake Fetherolf chipped in with 13, while Cam Kuhn and Jake Fetherolf netted nine markers apiece.

Marietta never trailed in the contest.

Down in the low blocks, Edwards was fed early and often. The 2015-16 OAC Player of the Year scored nine of the Pioneers’ first 11 points.

“We have such good shooters,” Edwards said. “They spread the floor and make my job a lot easier.”

Edwards said that he was also on a mission.

“For a reason, too,” said Edwards, who last week was named an OAC first-teamer but did not repeat as Player of the Year. “Everyone knows the reason, because of the voters and the haters — and the people against us.”

After Dillon Young drained a three to give MC its first double-digit lead, 14-4 at the 16:30 mark, BW called timeout.

When play was resumed, Marietta stretched its lead to 15 points on Ewing’s trey at the 14:01 mark.

The Yellow Jackets, however, rallied late in the half and actually cut it to two points, 37-35, on Quiring’s layup with a little over two minutes left. But the Pioneers got those points back on Wallace’s bucket, and led 39-35 at the intermission.

Quiring finished the first half with 11 points, while Edwards had 17.

“A.J.’s an All-American and first team (OAC), but we felt like he might have gotten robbed a little bit in the Player of the Year,” Wallace said. “So, we made a point to come out and feed A.J. and he did great today. He was forceful and he demanded the ball — and he put it in the hoop.”

After the break, Marietta maintained the lead, and stretched it to 20 points (72-52) on a 10-run. During that surge, Thome (bank), Richardson (drive), Edwards (underneath), and Kyle Dixon (a reverse layup and two freebies) all scored.

Baldwin Wallace continued to battle, but wasn’t able to reduce the deficit to single digits until the final seconds of the game.

“You know, the first two games of the tournament, we came out slow,” Wallace said. “We knew we had to come out against Baldwin Wallace in a hot start, and we did that. They (Yellow Jackets) kind of chipped their way back into it, but we responded well.”

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