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ALLIANCE — A cold finish helped deal Wilmington College a 75-65 loss to Mount Union in Ohio Athletic Conference action Saturday afternoon.

The loss drops Wilmington to 9-3 in the OAC, 14-5 overall. Mount Union improves to 6-6 in the conference, 8-11 for the season. Wilmington is now in a first-place tie with John Carroll atop the conference standings, one game up on Ohio Northern and Heidelberg.

“It was a very disappointing loss,” Wilmington head coach K.C. Hunt said. “We didn’t play very well. Give Mount Union credit — they made a bunch of shots, but we didn’t really come ready to play. We dug ourselves a hole and had to spend too much energy to get out of it. We got it back close, but didn’t have enough left in the tank to finish it.”

Wilmington opened the game on the attack. When R.J. Brown (Circleville) hit a jumper at 14:21 of the first half, the Quakers led 15-8.

The seven-point lead, however, turned into a seven-point deficit by halftime as Mount Union took a 41-34 lead at the break.

The Quakers never regained the lead, but were able to pull within 65-62 with 4:19 remaining. The stretch drive was made on fumes as Wilmington missed five straight shots, and the Purple Raiders pulled away.

Tyler White (Cincinnati/Colerain) led Wilmington with 21 points. Brandon Rogers (Xenia) scored 15 and Tyler Ledford (West Liberty/West Liberty-Salem) added 13. Brown scored eight points and also contributed five rebounds, five assists and four steals.

Mount Union’s Jimmy Wood led all scorers with 30 points.

Wilmington converted Mount Union’s 18 turnovers into 25 points.

Mount Union’s bench outscored Wilmington’s non-starters, 13-6.

“Our bench has been one of our strengths all year, and we didn’t get much from our bench today — from an energy standpoint or a stat-line standpoint,” Hunt said. “We have faith that those guys are going to bounce back. They are a huge part of our team and a huge part of our success. We’re only as good as our 18th guy. We need to have everybody into every single game. I really feel like our bench bunch is going to come back strong Wednesday night.”

The Quakers will face Otterbein 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at Fred Raizk Arena.

“We still control our own destiny,” Hunt said. “We have six games to go and we’re tied with John Carroll. If somebody had asked us earlier in the year if we would take that situation, we would have said yes. We know that we have given away some opportunities, but we have to understand that opportunities to win a championship don’t come around every day. You have to seize them. You’ve got to want it just a little bit more than we do right now.”