Men’s Basketball. ONU 82, Muskingum 69

NEW CONCORD — Senior Nate Burger (Dayton/Alter) and junior Ryan Bruns(Chickasaw/Marion Local) each posted double-doubles as the Ohio Northern men's basketball team rallied from a 17-point first half deficit to claim an 82-69 victory over Muskingum on Saturday afternoon.

The Polar Bears improve to 15-6 overall and remain in the hunt in the Ohio Athletic Conference as it improves its conference record to 10-4, while the Muskies drop to 8-13, 6-8.

Bruns led the way in the contest as he posted his ninth straight game with at least 20 points, while scoring a team-best 26 points and grabbing a game-high 14 rebounds.

Burger added 19 points and 10 rebounds and fell just four assists shy of recording a triple-double.

Senior Joey DiOrio (Columbus/Watterson) added 14 points for Northern.

The Muskies got out of the gate quick, jumping out to a 14-6 lead with 15:12 left in the first half.

Northern would fight back over the next nine minutes to knot the game at 25-all with 6:28 left in the half.

From there, the Muskies would catch fire and close the half on a 22-5 run capped off by a 3-pointer from Marcus Dempsey to take a commanding 47-30 lead into the break.

An 8-2 run to begin the half allowed Northern to get within striking distance as it cut the Musky lead to 49-38 just under three minutes into the second half.

A 3-pointer from Bruns with 6:58 remaining in the contest tied the game at 63-63. From there ONU closed the contest out on a 19-6 run to seal the 82-69 victory.

Northern was 29-of-64 (45.3 percent) from the field, including 7-of-25 (28.0 pe