ALLIANCE, Ohio – The No. 22 nationally ranked Mount Union men's basketball team beat Otterbein 94-81 in an Ohio Athletic Conference matchup on Saturday afternoon.

The Purple Raiders (19-6, 12-6 OAC) had four players score in double figures with senior Christian Parker (Canton / GlenOak) leading the way with 27 points, with sophomore Corey Hudson (Columbus / Pickerington) adding in 18 points. Senior Darrell Newsom (Twinsburg) and sophomore Caleb Laurich (Akron / Copley) rounded out the Raiders in double digits scoring 14 and 11 points respectively.

The Cardinals (17-8, 11-7 OAC) were led by Cam Evans who scored a team-high 22 points, Julian Heckman who scored 16 and Jack Clement who added in 14 points.

Mount Union jumped out to an early 10-0 lead just three minutes into the game, Otterbein would answer however going on a 20-8 run over the next 6:43 to take a 20-18 lead with just over 10 minutes remaining in the first half. The Raiders would come back with a 10-0 run of their own to push the lead back out to eight with 6:54 to play in the half. Mount Union would continue to stretch their lead over the final six minutes of the first half as they would take a 49-34 lead into the halftime break.

The Raiders would push the lead up to 20 over the first five minutes of the second half before the Cardinals would answer with a 16-7 run over the next 3:54 to cut the lead down to 11 with just over 11 minutes remaining in the game. Otterbein would slowly chip away at the lead over the next six and a half minutes, cutting it to seven with 3:37 left to play in the game but that is the closest that they would get as Mount Union would go on to outscore them 9-3 over the final three minutes of the game to take the 94-81 victory.

With the win the Raiders clinched the two-seed in the OAC Tournament next week and will host one of the semifinals on Thursday, February 22 at 7 p.m.