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WESTERVILLE, Ohio – The Otterbein men's basketball came up short in Ohio Athletic Conference (OAC) play Saturday evening, falling to cross-town rival Capital University by a score of 77-60 inside the Rike Center.

The Cardinals, now 2-8 overall and 1-4 within the league, will return to action Dec. 29 and 30 at the Case Western Reserve Holiday Tournament, opening against Wheaton College (Ill.). Capital, meanwhile, improves itself to 7-3 on the year and 3-1 against OAC opponents.

Both sides traded early scores before the visiting Crusaders opened a seven-point lead, the largest of the half, when Mark Minch converted a layup at the 12:48 to make the score 16-9. Minch, Capital's leading scorer, tallied 10 of his team's first 16 points.

Otterbein quickly closed the small gap, going on a 12-4 run over the next eight minutes to jump ahead, 21-20, after a nice driving layup from Marc McCuen with 4:58 to go before the break. The teams then traded the lead seven times from that point before the Crusaders ultimately took a slim 34-32 edge into the locker rooms for intermission.

Capital opened the second half on a mini 6-0 run and never trailed again, but the game remained a battle through the midway point of the half as the Crusaders only led 50-45 with 10:09 remaining. The Purple and White then threw the deciding punch with one difference-making run, outscoring Otterbein 16-4 in less than three minutes of action to open a 66-49 advantage.

The Cardinals, having erased some deficits down the stretch in recent games, were unable to really make a push this time around and Capital prevailed with the win.

Minch, in his first year at Capital after transferring from Ohio Dominican, scored a season-high 30 points on 14 of 22 shooting from the field. Austin Schreck and A.J. Dixon each added 13 to a Crusader offense that shot 55 percent for the game and only got to the free-throw line seven times.

Point guard Jake Phillis paced the Cards with 21 points, Grant Fenner had 17 and McCuen tossed in 10. All three played 35 minutes of action for Otterbein, which shot just 33 percent from the floor but did knock down 18 of 20 at the charity stripe. Bryan Mackenzie, three days after hauling in a career-high 15 rebounds at Muskingum, hit the glass hard again to lead all players with 12 boards.

Capital held a 46-20 scoring edge in the paint and both teams combined to tally just nine bench points.