BOX SCORE
NEW CONCORD, Ohio – Four Muskingum players reached double figures in scoring as the Fighting Muskies beat #8 Capital, 72-60 in Ohio Athletic Conference men’s basketball action on Saturday afternoon.
The Crusaders (18-3, 11-3 OAC), who have suffered all three of their losses on the road this season, fell to second place in the OAC standings behind John Carroll (16-4, 12-2 OAC) while Muskingum improved to 10-11 overall and 7-7 in OAC play.
While four Muskie players reached double figures in scoring just two Crusaders tallied 10 points or more.
Senior Nate Stahl (St. Henry, Ohio/St. Henry HS) finished with a game-high tying 19 points on 4-of-9 shooting from three-point range. Stahl tallied 12 of his 19 points in the second half and finished with six rebounds and one block on the day.
Classmate Quintin Mitchell (Toledo, Ohio/Toledo Libbey HS) came off the bench to post 10 points, seven rebounds, one assist and one steal.
Sophomore D.J. Frazier (Cincinnati, Ohio/Withrow HS) finished with eight points, five rebounds, two blocks, one steal and one assist while playing 24 minutes at point guard.
Overall, Capital made just 19-of-51 (.373) shots from the floor and suffered from a 36-32 disadvantage in rebounding and a 15-5 deficit in points off turnovers in a back and forth game that featured eight lead changes and six tied scores.
After both sides went into the locker room at halftime tied 28-all, the teams traded momentum for the opening minutes of the second stanza until Colin Bass drilled a trey for Muskingum to put it ahead 35-32 with 16:06 left. Capital would get back into it as an alley-oop dunk by Mitchell with 13:09 remaining made it a 38-37 deficit.
From there the sides would go back and forth, but Capital would not regain the lead. Muskingum used solid defense to keep the Crusaders off the scoreboard for a period of 2:29 while rattling off a 10-0 run to build a 57-46 advantage with 5:48 left. CU could get no closer than eight the rest of the way as MC was 8-of-11 from the free throw line in the final 5:19 while Capital was just 2-of-4 from the stripe.
Capital returns home to play host to Mount Union on Wednesday at 7 p.m.