Perseverance paid off in a big way for Joe Meyer, and the dividend for the John Carroll men's basketball team was a third Ohio Athletic Conference regular season championship in the last four years.

Meyer, who is averaging fewer points per game this year than any of his other three campaigns as a Blue Streak, hit arguably the biggest shot of his collegiate career when his three-pointer with just under six seconds to play found its target and lifted John Carroll to a 78-76 win at Marietta College Saturday afternoon.

Trailing 76-75 and coming out of a timeout with 13 ticks left in regulation, John Carroll's obvious options were to feed the hot hands that belonged to Kyle Hubbard, or have point guard Corey Shontz keep the ball in his capable hands.

Which may explain why Meyer was open for his shot. Shontz kicked the ball to Meyer, who made his only three-pointer of the game with 5.7 seconds left on the clock.

JCU then survived a potential game-tying jumper from Tyler Hammond that missed its mark as time experied.

By virtue of its 13-5 league mark, John Carroll ends the regular season in a tie for first place with Capital. By virtue of its sweep of Marietta as the deciding factor in the tiebreaker process, the Blue Streaks earned the #1 seed in next week's OAC Tournament, and will host a semifinal round game on Thursday, February 23, at 7:30 p.m. against an opponent to be determined (click here for the OAC bracket)

The title is also John Carroll's tenth OAC regular season crown in the 20 years Mike Moran has been the head coach of the program -- by far the most by a conference team over that span of years. Ohio Northern is the next closest with five titles.

This is also the third time John Carroll and Capital have shared the championship in the last ten years (2002-03 and 2006-07).

John Carroll withstood a 10-2 Marietta run to start the game, and took a 40-35 lead into the break. The Blue Streaks took their first lead of the game on a Patrick Sweeney lay-up at the 6:01 mark of the opening period that put the visitors ahead, 27-26.

Marietta once again started off the half strong, scoring the seve points to go up 42-40. From there, it would be a series of flurries from both sides that caused the lead to change hands eight times in the second half, including four times in the final three minutes.

The Pioneers led 72-68 heading intot he final three minutes when JCU scored five consecutive points -- all by Hubbard -- to take a 73-72 lead. After Trevor Halter made a pair of free throws, Hubbard scored on a lay-up with 54 seconds to play that gave JCU a 75-74 advantage.

The home team went back to Halter, who collected a pass from Joe Puch to put his team ahead 76-75 with 16 seconds remaining.

After calling a full time out, John Carroll ran its game winning play to Meyer.

Five  palyers reached double figures for John Carroll (18-6, 13-5 OAC), led by 14 from Hubbard and Meyer. Twins Patrick Sweeney and Conor Sweeney had matching 13 point efforts, while Mark Hester added 12. 

J,J. Martin led Marietta (17-8, 12-6 OAC) and all scorers with 20 points.