Had a play or two gone their way in the first five Ohio Athletic Conference games, the Marietta College Pioneers’ record heading into Sunday afternoon’s contest with Ohio Northern may have been a whole lot better than 1-4.

Among those four losses were a pair of overtime defeats as well as losses by four and five points.

Sunday afternoon on Youth Day at “The Banjo” the Pioneers found a way to grind out a win in a close one as they clipped the Polar Bears 71-68.

After a 10-0 run midway through the second half gave the Pioneers an eight-point lead they spent the rest of the game fighting off several Polar Bear challenges before prevailing at the end.

“This team has been playing really hard we just haven’t been able to make the plays when we needed to make the plays,” said Pioneer head coach Jon VanderWal. “We’ve got a great group of guys and today we made enough plays to win.”

Marietta College's Frank Waganfeald (5) shoots over a pair of Ohio Northern defenders, Sunday in Marietta. (Photo by Mike Morrison)

Ohio Northern got off to a great start as they scored the first seven points of the ballgame.

The Pioneers quickly recovered and five straight points by Jayden Bradshaw and two more from big man Frank Waganfeald knotted the score at 7-7.

The Polar Bears would lead for the majority of the first half and built their biggest lead of the half at 33-25 with less than four minutes to play thanks to three free throws by Carter Reese and a two-pointer by Jadi Cunningham Jr.

Marietta rallied in the closing minute of the half and actually tied the game at 33-33 in the closing seconds thanks to an 8-0 run.

Jack Main yanked down nine rebounds in the game to lead the Pioneers, including six of the offensive variety.

Marietta College's Darius Carden (1) pulls down a rebound against Ohio Northern, Sunday in Marietta. (Photo by Mike Morrison)

Main’s rebound and put-back got the MC run started and seconds later Waganfeald put down a two-handed dunk off of an assist from Darius Carden.

A steal and finish on the other end by Jake Singleton drew the Pios to within two before De’Ovion Price’s driving basket evened things up at 33-33.

Ohio Northern recovered to score the final two points of the half and take a 35-33 lead into the intermission thanks to a field goal by Theo Maag.

The Bears maintained the two-point margin into the second half before the Pioneers played their best stretch of basketball of the day to open up an eight-point lead.

Inside buckets by Waganfeald and Landry Palata got things started and Bradshaw followed with a drive to the bucket with a left-handed finish.

Bradshaw came up big once again on the next Marietta possession as he grabbed an offensive rebound and while still in the air slammed it home for a thunderous two-handed dunk to extend the Pioneer lead to six.

Marietta outrebounded the Polar Bears by a 39-30 margin with an impressive 18 of them coming on the offensive end.

Bradshaw accounted for four of those offensive boards.

“We outrebounded them tonight and that was a key,” said VanderWal. “I challenged Jayden Bradshaw to get on the offensive glass and he got four and Jack (Main) got six and I thought that was huge.”

After another stop on defense, Danny Flood capped the Pioneer run with a two-pointer to give them their biggest lead of the game at 50-42.

The Polar Bears closed it to a one-point lead thanks in part to five consecutive points by Will Miller but the Pioneers got a triple from Bradshaw to shove the lead back to four.

With just under five minutes to play Marietta got a huge three from Carden to give them a 66-59 lead.

The pesky Polar Bears would simply not go away and a pair of triples by Miller and Noah Langford brought them back to within two with less than a minute to play.

The Pioneers missed an opportunity to extend their lead when Price’s lay-up rimmed out of the basket and Waganfeald’s rebound and put-back attempt came up empty giving the ball back to the visitors with just 21 seconds left to play.

The Marietta defense came up huge as they forced Miller to throw up a very low percentage 3-pointer that fell way short with Flood grabbing the rebound with just 1.5 seconds to play.

Flood was immediately fouled and missed the first free throw before making the second to give the Pioneers the three-point lead.

Carter Reese’s heave from near mid-court would come nowhere close as the Pioneers escaped with a much-needed win.

Bradshaw led the Pioneers in scoring with 18 points while Waganfeald added 16.

Carden added 10 points and Flood 8 for the Pioneers as they improved to 8-5 on the season and 2-4 in the OAC.

“We’ve had some really fluke things happen to us and we have lost some games that we shouldn’t have lost,” said VanderWal, whose team will host Muskingum on Wednesday. “It was good for our team to get a hard-fought, close win.”

Ohio Northern was led by Miller and Reese with 15 and 14 points, respectively, while Cunningham Jr. reached double figures with 10.

The Polar Bears slipped to 8-4 overall and 3-3 in conference play.