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Marietta College men eliminate Mount Union in OAC tourney

Photo courtesy of Nate Knobel Marietta College’s RaNeal Ewing, left, goes up for a basket as Mount Union’s Tommy Stenger defends during Thursday’s Ohio Athletic Conference tournament semifinal at Ban Johnson Arena. Marietta won, 100-78.

Marietta College found itself in need of a spark in Thursday night’s Ohio Athletic Conference Semi-Final against Mount Union at Ban Johnson Arena.

Trailing the Purple Raiders by 15 points late in the first half, the reigning OAC regular season champs got the spark they were looking for off of their bench as senior guard RaNeal Ewing scored 12 points in the final five minutes of the first half as the Pioneers wiped out all but one point of the Mount Union lead before dominating the second half en route to a 100-78 victory.

“They were a little more ready than we were at the start and I thought we came out a little tentative,” said Marietta College head coach Jon VanderWal. “When we got the lead down to a point at halftime I told the guys we were right where we needed to be.”

To say Mount Union came out of the gate strong would be a major understatement as the Purple Raiders connected on each of their first eight field goal attempts, including three from behind the arc to jump out to an early 19-10 lead.

After a pair of inside Pioneer baskets by Jack Thome briefly halted the Raiders momentum, Jeff Foreman and Nathan Bower-Malone knocked down back-to-back triples and D’Vontay Friga added a two-pointer for Mount Union as they increased their lead to a game-high 15.

Mount Union maintained that lead at the five minute mark before Ewing and the Pioneers came off of the mat in a big way.

Ewing’s 3-pointer and a deuce by Thome preceeded a pair of freebies by junior Dillon Young to quickly cut the Mount Union lead to seven.

After an inside score by Diallo Niamke pushed the lead back to nine, Marietta got a bucket by A.J. Edwards and another one from long range from Ewing to trim the lead to four.

After a stop on the defensive end Ewing drove strong to the bucket to pull the Pio’s to within a field goal and a pair of free throws by Edwards knotted the game at 36-36.

Ewing scored four more points in the final minute of the half including a beautiful drive with a left-handed finish to give MC it’s first lead since the opening minute of the game before DeAllen Jackson regained the lead for the Purple Raiders with a bucket in the closing seconds of the half.

“We got off to a little bit of a slow start and missed some shots and couldn’t get any defensive stops,” said Ewing. “Our second group came in and gave us a little spark and that got our whole team energized.”

Mount Union managed to hang onto its lead early in the second half before the Pioneers strung together a 19-7 run as they pulled out to their first double-digit lead of the game at 66-55 with a little more than ten minutes to play.

The Raiders came charging back once more as they out-pointed the Pioneers 17-9 over the next five minutes of play to cut the Marietta College lead to 75-72 with 5:51 to play in the game.

Much like they did in the final five minutes of the first half the Pioneers once again came to life in a big way as they scored 25 of the final 31 points of the game to punch their ticket to Saturday nights championship game.

A pair of free throws each by Keith Richardson and Anthony Wallace sandwiched a Thome bucket as MC increased its lead to nine before yet another Ewing bucket and a triple by Wallace put the Pio’s on the verge of sealing the deal.

Seconds later the Pioneers did seal the deal in grand fashion as Kyle Dixon came up with a steal and fired an outlet pass to Richardson who instead of taking the wide open lay-up, intentionally tossed the ball hard off the backboard where it was caught and dunked in mid-air by the trailing Ewing to bring the huge Pioneer crowd to their feet and increase the lead to 14.

“Me and Keith have practiced that play a lot and tonight he looked back and saw me and I just had to go and get it,” said Ewing, of the play that brought the noise level at “The BanJo” to an incredible level.

Ewing finished with 29 points as the Pioneer bench outscored Mount Union by a 46-18 margin.

“He is a gamer and he lives for these moments,” said VandwerWal of Ewing, who knocked down 11 of his 16 shot attempts in the game. “He lives and breathes basketball and he’s not scared of anything when it comes to basketball. He’s a big time player.”

Edwards added 18 points while Richardson and Thome each reached double figures with 16 and 12 points respectively.

Mount Union head coach Mike Fuline was pleased with his young team’s efforts against the top-seeded and eighth-ranked Pioneers despite the final result.

“You know Marietta College is always going to put a run together, especially here,” said Fuline, in his sixth season as head coach. “Being up at halftime was our goal but we just kind of ran out of steam. I’m proud of our guys and hopefully it makes them a little hungrier for years to come.”

Tommy Stenger and Jackson led the way with 17 points for the Raiders whose season ends with a 15-12 mark.

The win was the 14th in a row for the Pioneers as well as their 14th of the season on their home court on which they will host Baldwin Wallace Saturday after the Yellow Jackets downed Muskingum 95-78 Thursday night to earn their spot in the finals.

“This is an unbelievable environment especially for D3 basketball and we are pretty fortunate to get to play in it,”said VanderWal, whose Pioneers have placed runner-up the past two seasons. “This is big for us. We haven’t been able to do it the past couple of years and we’ve got to make it happen this year.”

Tip-off is scheduled for 7:30.

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