Box Score
John Carroll weathered a red-hot first half of shooting by visiting Muskingum, then countered with its own strong shooting half to run away for a 83-69 victory in an Ohio Athletic Conference Tournament semifinal round contest held at the DeCarlo Varsity Center Friday night.
Click here for the 2009 OAC Tournament Central website
The top seeded Blue Streaks will advance to the tournament championship game on Saturday, where they will face second-seeded Capital University, a 63-58 winner over Ohio Northern in the other semifinal game played earlier in the evening.
It would be the fifth-seeded Muskies who found their offensive groove in the opening period. Fuelded by the three-point shooting of Cory Borquin, the Muskies overcame a 12-2 burst by John Carroll to open the game. After the Muskies trailed for the the first 12 minutes, Borquin's third three-pointer of the half gave Muskingum its first lead, 27-26, with 7:56 showing on the clock.
That trey was part of an 8-0 run that gave Muskingum its largest lead of the contest. When Andrew Chonko dropped in a lay-up with 5:01 to play, the Muskies led 32-26.
The Blue Streaks would slow the run, and only trailed 40-38 at the half.
Muskingum shot 15-27 (.556) from the field, and 6-10 (.600) from three-point range in the opening 20 minutes.
Neither team would go ahead by more than two points over the course of the first six minutes of the 2nd half. With the score tied at 48-48 with just over 14 minutes to play, JCU put together a 6-0 run to take a 54-48 lead, only to have the Muskies answer with six straight points. Trevor Scott's two free throws tied the score at 54-54 with 11:45 remaining in regulation.
John Carroll would finally pull away with a run the Muskies could not answer. Leading by just four points at 64-60 with just under seven minutes to play, Chris Zajac (Brecksville, OH, Brecksville-Broadview Heights) drained a three-pointer. After Pat Byrne put in a lay-up for the Muskies, Corey Shontz (Andover, OH, Pymatuning Valley) answered with a three to put JCU ahead by a 70-62 count.
The Muskies threw yet another haymaker when Scott canned a three-pointer with 4:19 on the clock that cut JCU''s advantage to 70-65, but Shontz hit yet another three that proved to be the knockout punch. His three at the 4:00 mark kick started a 13-4 run over the closing four minutes for John Carroll that salted the game away.
John Carroll (22-4), which improved it school record winning streak to 18 ina row, was paced by Zajac's 17 points. Kirbus added 16 and Maurice Haynes II (Cleveland, OH, Villa Angela-St. Joseph) punched in 14 tos end JCU to its fifth OAc title game in seven years.
The Blue Streaks helped themselves with a strong second half of shooting, making 16-30 (.533) from the field and 5-11 (,455) from beyond the arc in the final 20 minutes.
Muskingum (14-13) was paced by Scott's game-high 19 points, while Borquin contributed 17 points and Byrne dropped in 15. The Muskies cooled off in the second half, making just 7-22 (.318) from the field and just 2-10 (.200) from three-point range.