EUGENE, Ore. – The NCU men's basketball team started off the 2016-17 Cascade Conference season with a 65-64 win over Oregon Tech on Saturday night.
 
Every championship caliber team is able to pull out an improbable win or two during the course of a season and NCU got one of theirs out of the way early. Trailing by 11 points at halftime and as many as 14 in the second half, the Beacons were able to crawl back into a game in which they shot just 4-for-23 from three-point range and 9-for-23 at the free-throw line.
 
The Beacons (7-1, 1-0 CCC) were down 35-24 at halftime and still trailed 57-46 with 8:29 to play when Jay Mayernik put back a layup to spark a 14-0 NCU run. Anthony Walker scored five points and Brendyn Taylor had a steal and layup in the mix but with 5:47 to play it was a monster alley-oop one handed jam by Kylor Kelley that tied the contest and ignited the Morse Event Center crowd.
 
Kelley gave the Beacons their first lead of the game on the next possession, scoring three points on an old fashioned three-point play for a 60-57 advantage. The lead was never a comfortable one and with 2:13 to play Brian Beard gave the lead back to the Owls on a tip-in to make it 64-63.
 
A pair of back-to-back fruitless possessions for each team ended with a block from Kelley on an Andrew Weber layup try and the Beacons had the ball with time running out.
 
With 10 seconds to play, Kenny Blackwell drove the lane and fed the ball to Kelley who once again slammed home a bucket to give NCU the lead for good. Oregon Tech missed on a last-second jumper and the Beacons escaped with the win. It was a win of some redemption for the Beacons as OIT handed NCU their only home loss of the season last year.
 
The Beacons were led by Walker who finished with 14 points off the bench. Blackwell scored 13 points and had four assists and Mayernik posted 14 rebounds to go with nine points and three blocks. Kelley recorded another double-double with 11 points and 11 rebounds and for the third time this season matched his own school blocking record with seven.  
 
Oregon Tech (6-4, 0-1) was led by Brandon Halter's game-high 17 points. Halter was 2-for-12 from three-point range as the Owls shot just 19% as a team from beyond the arc, barely better that NCU's clip. Mitchell Fink was the only other player in double figures for OIT, scoring 11 points off the bench. Beard finished his night with eight points and ten rebounds.
 
NCU will return to action on Saturday when they take on Southern Oregon University. The Raiders, currently receiving votes in the NAIA national coaches poll, defeated Corban in their conference opener on Friday to improve to 7-4. Oregon Tech will head to Salem on Saturday for their next game at Corban. Both games are slated for 7:30 p.m. tip-offs.