Miners go to the perimeter to chop down Mighty Oaks

Yamani Ball

UMR entered Saturday’s game with Oakland City shooting just 29 percent from three-point range -- a fact not lost on those aligned with the visiting Mighty Oaks.

But most of those struggles from long range came earlier in the season, as the Miners had shot the ball well from behind the arc in the last four games before the Christmas break. That trend continued Saturday, as UMR connected on 10-of-21 from three-point land and went on to record a 78-62 win over Oakland City at the Bullman Multi-Purpose Building.

After a slow start from three-point range -- UMR missed six of its first seven attempts -- the Miners warmed up during the course of a 14-8 spurt to close the half that left them with a nine-point lead.

UMR led 25-22 with just under seven minutes to play in the half and still led 30-25 with 3:02 to go before the intermission, but Yamani Ball hit a pair of three-pointers and Tyrone Davidson also connected from long range to give the Miners their biggest lead of the first half at 39-30.

Oakland City scored the first seven points of the second half to close to within two, but that was as close as the Mighty Oaks would get after halftime. The Miners answered that run by outscoring OCU 24-14 over the next ten minutes to go up 63-51.

The Mighty Oaks got back to within eight on a pair of free throws by Keegan Carmony with 5:03 to go, but Owain Hall -- who had only three treys on the entire season prior to Saturday -- hit his second of the game on the Miners’ next trip down the floor to push the lead into double figures for good. UMR finished the game on a 13-5 run.

Davidson and Ball each finished with 18 points to lead the Miners, while Joe Shardo scored 10 points off the bench for UMR. The Miners got their 10 three-point baskets from six different players as they hit double figures in that department for the second time this season.

Not only did UMR shoot the ball well from behind the arc, it had a good day period from the floor as it finished at 50.8 percent. However, the good shooting didn’t carry over to the free throw line where the Great Lakes Valley Conference’s second-best team at the line made only eight of their 15 attempts on the afternoon.

UMR held a 39-27 advantage on the boards, buoyed by a 25-10 difference in the first half.

The Miners, 6-5 overall and 1-3 in the GLVC, return to conference play Thursday when they host Southern Illinois Edwardsville (7-4, 3-1 GLVC) in a 7:30 p.m. game at the Bullman Multi-Purpose Building.