MARIETTA, Ohio — For the second straight game, the No. 25 ranked Marietta College men's basketball team knocked off a team ahead of the Pioneers in the Ohio Athletic Conference standings.

Marietta edged Ohio Northern, 90-86, Saturday (Jan. 6) improving to 10-3 overall and 4-2 in the OAC. The win was MC head coach Jon VanderWal's 200th career coaching victory. ONU slips to 9-4 overall and 4-2 in the OAC.

Kyle Dixon led the Pioneers with a career-high 28 points. The junior also grabbed a team-best eight rebounds and dished out five assists. Anthony Wallace and Avery Williams scored 14 and 13 points, respectively. Dillon Young finished with 11 points, six rebounds and six assists.

ONU's Ryan Bruns poured in a game-high 32 points hitting a pair of three-pointers. He pulled down seven rebounds and blocked three MC shots. Nate Burger sank four triples and finished with 25 points and nine assists, while Joey Diorio drained six treys and added 18 points and nine boards.

Ohio Northern scored the first five points of the game and quickly built an 11 points lead, 17-6. Bruns swatted away three Pioneer shots in the first three minutes and altered several others.

Marietta settled down and started to chip away at the Polar Bear lead. Mel Shuler stole the ball from Burger near midcourt and fed the ball to DeVaughn Wingard for a break away dunk cutting the deficit to eight points, 28-20, with 7:39 left in the half.

Ohio Northern was whistled for an offensive foul on the ensuing possession giving the ball back to the Pioneers. That's when the lights went out in Ban Johnson Arena, literally.

A large portion of the City of Marietta lost power causing the game to be delayed for over three hours. Once power was restored and the teams had time to warm-up, the game resumed at 7 p.m.

Once play resumed, Ohio Northern hit a quick three-pointer and extended its lead to 12 points, 34-22, with 5:50 left in the half. The break gave Marietta time to regroup and the Pioneers finished the half on a 20-4 run taking a 42-38 lead into halftime.

The teams traded small leads in the second half with neither leading by more than six points through the first 17 minutes of the period. Marietta scored 14 straight points to turn a five-point deficit into a nine-point lead, 84-75, with 2:28 remaining. It's biggest of the game.

After trading buckets, Marietta still held a nine-point advantage with 1:27 left on the clock. ONU was forced to foul and Young and Wallace each hit a pair of free throws down the stretch to seal the victory.

For the game, Marietta shot 53.1% (34-of-64) from the floor, 55.6% (10-of-18) from three-point range and a perfect 100% (12-of-12) at the line. The Polar Bears were 33-of-63 (52.4%) from the floor, 12-of-25 (48.0%) behind the arc and 8-of-11 (72.7%) at the line.

Ohio Northern edged the Pioneers on the glass, 31-30. The Polar Bears turned the ball over 16 times, while Marietta committed 13 turnovers.

Marietta hits the road next week for a pair of OAC games. The Pioneers play at Mount Union on Wednesday (Jan. 10) at 7:30 p.m. and at Heidelberg on Saturday (Jan. 13) at 3 p.m.