Sports
Career nights from Schmock, Clayton guide Ohio past Bowling Green
By: Bryan Kurp
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ATHENS, Ohio (WOUB) — Entering Tuesday, there was one team in the Mid-American Conference that Jeff Boals never defeated: the Bowling Green Falcons.
Ohio (13-2, 4-0 MAC) never trailed in the contest and came away with an 85-78 victory over Bowling Green (8-7, 1-3 MAC). The win is the Bobcats’ eighth in a row and nine straight wins inside The Convo to start the season.
“We wanted to try to get to the foul line more and outrebound them — kind of what they’ve what they did to us last year,” Jeff Boals said. “I thought our guys did a really good job of being in attack mode. Certain guys, you know, different guys, stepped up at different times, hit some big free throws to kind of keep it at that 6-7-8 point mark there late in the game. And they did a great job finishing the game.”
Mark Sears, named MAC Player of the Week on Monday, had his streak of five-straight games or 20 or more points. Sears finished just a point shy of that mark with 19. He only shot 4-of-12 from the floor but sank all ten of his free-throw attempts.
Jason Carter led all scorers with 22 points but two other Bobcats had career nights.
Tommy Schmock, a transfer from the University of Findlay, scored a season-high 17 points, including 14 points in the second half. Schmock also led all Bobcats with over 38 minutes of action.
“I thought Tommy did real well playing extended minutes which he’s never played this whole year,” Boals said. “He set the tone from the start with the full-court defense, you know, getting those loose balls and making it hard for those guys to bring the ball up. It’s hard when you spend that much energy defensively then you ask him to do it offensively, the same thing.”
AJ Clayton also eclipsed a new career high with 12 points, in which nine of them came in the opening half.
“That’s just what he does,” Ohio fifth year forward Jason Carter said. “He has all the tools to be the best player in this league. He’s just scratching the surface.”
The Bobcats next travel to Central Michigan on Saturday. Tip-off is scheduled for 1 p.m. in Mount Pleasant.