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COLUMBUS – The Capital University men's basketball team (12-6, 9-2 Ohio Athletic Conference) defeated the Student Princes of Heidelberg (9-9, 4-7 OAC) by a final of 77-62 Wednesday night in an OAC contest at the Capital Center to end a two-game losing streak.

Senior forward Spencer Niekamp (St. Henry, Ohio) recorded his third double-double of the season, posting 23 points and 10 rebounds on 9-of-15 shooting from the floor.

Fellow senior Michael Sommer (Celina, Ohio; above) also poured in an impressive night offensively scoring 21 points for the Crusaders.

With the win and Marietta's loss at Otterbein, Capital moves back into a tie for first place in the conference with seven games to play in the regular season.

Early on, both teams seemed to be executing offensively as they went back and forth for most of the first half. When the Crusaders were finally able to get a little bit of separation with 2:25 remaining before half, the Student Princes scored six straight to tie things up at 30 at intermission.

Most of Capital's offense in the first period went through Sommer as he scored nine points in the half on 4-of-6 shooting.

The Crusaders went into the break uncharacteristically shooting 14.3 percent from distance, but were still able to manage a tie through the game's opening 20 minutes of basketball behind timely transition buckets off Heidelberg turnovers.

The Crusaders took an early lead on the second half's first possession behind a Tim Congrove (Circleville, Ohio) 3-pointer, and they would never lose the lead.

Despite numerous comeback attempts, the closest the Student Princes got was two points as the Crusaders piled on the scoring in the second.

Niekamp was the story of the second of half for Capital, scoring 19 of his 23 points in period and connecting on 50 percent of his shots (6-for-12).

In large part due to the potent offensive outbursts from Niekamp and Sommer, the Crusaders eventually led by as many as 19 points with 3:47 remaining in the contest.

For the game, the Crusaders shot 50 percent from the field (31-for-62) and held the Student Princes to 46 percent shooting as they forced 17 turnovers defensively.

The Crusaders return to action this Saturday when they travel to Alliance, Ohio, to face the Purple Raiders of Mount Union for a 4 p.m. tip. The game will be broadcast locally on SportsTime Ohio on tape delay at 11:30 p.m. (Time Warner Cable channel 34).