For a while Wednesday evening in John Carroll's men's basketball game at Muskingum , there may have been a seed of doubt as to whether the Blue Streaks would be able to escape New Concord with a victory.

By the end of the night, however, that seed was planted somewhere far away, as John Carroll used a strong second half to blow open a close game. In their final road game of the 2010-11 regular season, the Blue Streaks came away with an 84-54 win.

Box Score

The final 17 minutes of the night belonged to the Blue Streaks, who closed the game out by outscoring the Muskies, 38-14.

John Carroll never trailed at any point during the game, but did not enjoy its first double digit lead until Michael Hartnett knocked down a jumper at the 4:50 mark. That made the score 35-35.

JCU pushed its lead to as many as 17 points before settling on a 15-point margin (44-29) at the break.

Muskingum started out the second half on fire, opening with an 11-2 run that trimmed its deficit to a mere six points. Seth Howard's two free throws with 17:12 showing on the clock made the score 46-40 in favor of the Blue Streaks.

After scoring 11 points in the opening three minutes, Muskingum managed to score just 14 the rest  of the way. In the meantime, nine different players contributed to John Carroll's 40-point second half.

John Carroll (17-7, 12-5 OAC) was paced by a game-high 18 points from Corey Shontz (Andover, OH, Pymatuning Valley) and 12 from Mark Hester (Ashtabula, OH, Lakeside). The Blue Streaks finished the game shooting better than 50 percent (28-54, .519) from the field.

Ten points apiece from Josh Brindley and Kyle Clinedinst led Muskingum (8-16, 4-13 OAC) on a night in which the home team shot just 20-65 (.308) from the floor, including 9-34 (.3650 in the second half.