ALLIANCE, Ohio – The Otterbein men's basketball team worked its hardest to "stay up" following the monumental program win earlier this week against No. 1 John Carroll, but didn't quite have enough juice in a second nationally-ranked showdown to conclude the regular season.

The Cardinals attempted to keep pace in a high-scoring affair at No. 22-ranked Mount Union, but the host Raiders just stayed on the gas too long en route to a 94-81 decision.

As a result, Otterbein finishes in a tie for third place in the Ohio Athletic Conference standings with Heidelberg, but will assume the No. 4 seed in next week's OAC Tournament as a result of the head-to-head tiebreaker.

Otterbein will host fifth-seeded Marietta in the quarterfinal round come Tuesday night at 7 p.m. Mount Union (defending OAC champ) will be the second seed and take a bye into the semifinals.

KEY MOMENTS:

• Mount Union, entered having lost three of its last four, opened the game on a 10-0 run.
   
• Otterbein finally settled in and strung together 20 points over the next seven minutes, good enough for a 20-18 across the midway point of the half.
   
• A trifecta from Julian Heckman kept the Cards only down five later on, but a 19-9 run by the home side punctuated the first half. Mount led 49-34 at intermission.
   
• The Raiders stretched that lead to 20 in the opening five minutes of the second half, and Otterbein was forced to try and climb the steep mountain back moving forward.
   
• The Cards did shrink the deficit to 11 multiple times, and then as low as seven with 3:37 left on the clock, but wouldn't quite have enough to erase the full gap.

BOX SCORE LOOK:

• Both teams shot a near identical 48% on the day, including a combined 25 three-pointers in the contest.
   
• All-American Christian Parker went for 27 points and seven rebounds to lead four Raiders in double figures. Corey Hudson added 18 points and seven dimes.
   
• Cam Evans scored 22 to pace the Cardinals while Heckman (16) and Jack Clement (14) supplemented the cause, with all three grabbing six rebounds each. Evans went over 1,200 career points in the process.
   
• Troy Scowden scored another 10 for Otterbein and worked hard to grab five additional rebounds, three on the offensive side.

 
POSTSEASON PREVIEW:

• The Cardinals will now look to beat Marietta for a third time this season after victories of 86-70 and 90-88 (double overtime) in the regular season. Heidelberg hosts Capital in Tuesday's other quarterfinal while John Carroll joins Mount with the bye. The ultimate winner earns the league's automatic bid to compete in the NCAA Championships.