CONNORSVILLE, Ind.

Monday, February 14, 2000

CONNORSVILLE, Ind. – If you called the Ohio Southern Trailblazers a bunch of hot shots, they’d take it as a compliment after Sunday’s game.

The Trailblazers were sizzling from the field as they routed Indiana-East University 99-76.

Overall, the Trailblazers were 43 of 72 for 59.7 percent, but from 2-point range OUSC was 20 of 27 from the field the second half (74 percent) and 39 of 57 (68.4 percent) for the game. They were 4 of 15 from 3-point range.

Andrew Stevens poured in 31 points to lead Ohio Southern, now 15-15 heading into tournament play. Stevens, who had 10 assists in a game last week, had five assists to go with his point total.

Momir Gajic scored 22 points and Maurice Creel 21 for OUSC. Dan Bean had seven rebounds and C. J. Captain handed out seven assists.

Creel hit 8 of 9 from the field and 5 of 7 at the line while Gajic connected on 11 of 17 from the floor.

"I’m real satisfied how we’ve grown offensively. We started out just relying on hot shooting by one or two people. Andrew is still having big games, but now we’re getting more production and it’s spread around and everyone is playing unselfishly," Ohio Southern coach Ed Fry said. "I was real happy with everyone contributing."

Stevens scored 20 points, Gajic 14, and Creel 10 as OUSC rolled to a 53-33 first half lead.

Creel and Stevens had 11 points each the second half with Gajic adding eight and Captain seven as OUSC extended its lead.

Gross had 18 points and Morris 10 the second half, but it wasn’t enough.

"Defensively, we still need to step it up if we want to run the table in the tournament," said Fry. "We’ve got some pretty strong people on the boards. We’re scoring from the post and getting strong rebounding from Momir, Maurice, and Dan. But we can always block out better."

OUSC plays at OU-Lancaster at 2 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 19.