John Carroll’ men’s basketball team is where it wants to be with two weeks and four games remaining in the regular season.

Off a 109-81 victory over Wilmington on Feb. 3 at DeCarlo Varsity Center, JCU is 17-4 overall, 11-3 in the Ohio Athletic Conference.

The Blue Streaks are tied for first place with Marietta (17-4, 11-3 OAC) and primed to host Baldwin Wallace on Feb. 7.

Emotions always run high when these crosstown rivals get together, but senior forward John Cirillo (Notre Dame-Cathedral Latin) and his teammates are sure to get an extra push from memories of their 88-79 loss at BW on Jan. 17.

“The league is unbelievable this season and BW is a great team that really shoots the ball. We’ll have to come ready to play,” Cirillo said.

Cirillo finished with 16 points to top a balanced attack that had six other players score in double figures. The Blue Streaks led at halftime, 52-39, and had leads as large as 27 points in the second half against the Quakers (9-11, 5-9 OAC).

Sophomore guard Jimmy Berger finished with 14 points for the Blue Streaks. Berger’s twin brother, Ryan, and junior center Allen Stokes each scored 13 points. Freshman guard Jackson Sartain had 12 points. Senior guards Mathew Csuhran and Tony Vuyancih added 11 and 10 points, respectively, as the Blue Streaks blistered the nets with 61.8 percentage shooting in the first half and 54.7 percent overall.

“There are so many guys on this team who could get 20 (points) every game, but we sacrifice to win,” Cirillo said.

Wilmington senior guard Christian Jones led all scorers with 35 points. He came in averaging 19.0 points, fifth in the OAC.

In addition to the game against BW, the Blue Streaks have a home game remaining against Heidelberg on Feb. 14 and road games at Ohio Northern on Feb. 10 and Capital on Feb. 17 to conclude the regular season.

“We’re not looking any further ahead than Baldwin Wallace. That will be a battle. It always is,” JCU coach Pete Moran said.

Should the Blue Streaks and Marietta finish in a tie atop the OAC standings, the Blue Streaks prevail because they won both regular-season contests.