By: Andrew Korba

WESTERVILLE, Ohio -- Sophomore Kelvin Jones (Sheffield Lake, Ohio/Brookside) recorded his second double-double of the season to lead the Hiram College men's basketball team past Otterbein by a 76-71 score in a non-conference contest on Wednesday night.

The Terriers have now won three in a row and are 3-1 on the season, while the Cardinals drop to 1-4.

Jones finished the game with 14 points, going 8-of-10 from the free throw line, and pulled down a career-high 15 rebounds.

Senior J.J. Woodson (Oakwood Village, Ohio/Bedford) had a team-high 21 points. Sophomore Trey Sanders (Shaker Heights, Ohio/Beachwood) added 11 points off the bench and sophomore Paul Ortiz (Canton, Ohio/McKinley Senior) finished with 10.

Jake Phillis scored a game-high 26 points to lead Otterbein.

The Terriers scored eight of the first 10 points of the game to jump out to an early 8-2 lead.

Otterbein would pull to within 17-16, before Hiram went on 10-1 run, capped off on a 3-pointer by Ortiz, to open up a 27-17 lead with 6:42 left in the first half.

The Terriers took a 41-34 lead into the break.

Two free throws from senior Austen Rekolt (Salem, Ohio/West Branch) gave Hiram its largest lead of the game at 47-34 early in the second half.

Otterbein would respond with the next nine points, before Woodson knocked down a trey to push the Terriers lead back to 50-43.

The Cardinals would use a 9-0 run later in the half to knot the score at 63-63 with just over four minutes to play.

Sanders would score the next five points for Hiram to give them a 68-63 advanatge.

Otterbein would trim the Terriers lead to three points four different times in the final three minutes, but could get no closer. Woodson knocked down a pair of free throws with five seconds left to put the game away for good.

Hiram would finish the game 26-of-60 (43.3 percent) from the field and 16-of-20 (80.0 percent) from the free throw line. The Cardinals were 24-of-62 (38.7 percent) in shooting and 16-of-23 (69.6 percent) from the charity stripe.

Both teams pulled down 40 rebounds in the game.

Hiram will play next on December 2, as they open up NCAC play with a road contest at Allegheny (Pa.) that will begin at approximately 8 p.m.