KENOSHA, Wis. – The Carthage College Red Men survived a scare Tuesday at Tarble Arena, as a pair of Kevin Kozil free throws lifted the men's basketball team to an 81-79 win over a ferocious Illinois Institute of Technology.
 
The Red Men moved to 11-3 following their final non-conference game of the season, while dropping the Scarlet Hawks to 10-5 on the year.
 
"If you would have told us on October 15th that we would be sitting here at 11-3 after tonight I think we would have all signed on," said head coach Bosko Djurickovic following the win.  "We just beat a very good IIT team who is now 10-5 and will win 16 or 17 games on the year.  We should all be happy.  But because we haven't played as well the last two games, as we had during the previous four or five games I think we are all a little bit on edge.  That starts with me so we need to do a better job in our preparation for Saturday.  We have to put our people in better places to succeed."
 
Mike Stevenson led Carthage with his fourth 20-point game of the season, finishing with 20 points, followed by Jordan Thomas with 16 and Kienan Baltimore with 11.  Brad Kruse added ten rebounds to lead all players in the game.
 
An evenly played first half saw the Red Men and Scarlet Hawks exchanging baskets throughout the first 20 minutes with the Red Men twice building six-point leads but with IIT limiting the damage each time.  The Red Men finished the half on a Steve Leazer layup that gave Carthage a three-point lead, 37-34, heading to the locker room behind a team-high from Mike Stevenson for Carthage and Rarick Samuel with 12 points apiece. 
 
The Red Men shot 14-of-33 from the field for 42.4-percent and 7-of-7 from the line, while going just 2-of-12 from deep.  Meanwhile, IIT shot 41.4-percent from the field on 12-of-29 shooting and 2-of-7 from three. 
 
After having their lead cut to one early in the second half, the Red Men used a 22-10 run over 8:38 to build a 13-point lead.  Brad Perry led the run with six points of his eight for the game coming during it followed by Stevenson and Jordan Thomas with four each.
 
The Scarlet Hawks wouldn't go away however, as sophomore guard Anthony Mosley Jr. scored 13 points during a 21-10 run, that lasted 7:02, in favor of IIT to tie the game at 77-77 with 52-seconds left in regulation.
 
With Carthage splitting a set of free throw in the final minute, it allowed Samuel Rarick hitting a jumper with 11-seconds remaining to tie the game at 79-79. One Carthage's ensuing possession Kevin Kozil got to the rim and was fouled sending him to the line with three seconds remaining.   Coming out of the timeout with the Red Men leading by two, IIT bobbled the inbounds and a desperation heave at the buzzer fell wide to give the Red Men the two-point victory.
 
Kozil finished with nine points and went four-of-four from the line.
 
As a team the Red Men finished just behind the Scarlet Hawks, shooting 45.3-percent in the game on 29-64 from the field to IIT's 28-60 for 46.7-percent.
 
Mosley Jr. led all scores with 24 points in the game with Rarick adding 22 as well.
 
The Red Men return to action Saturday, January 14th as they hit the road for a huge conference match-up with the Titans of Illinois Wesleyan University.
 
Looking ahead to the rest of the season the head coach commented, "We have put ourselves in a really good situation.  We have two wins on the road in the league, at North Central and at North Park that are going to be hard for anybody to get. If we can go down and win a game on Saturday then we are in very good shape for the rest of the season.  That doesn't mean we are winning the league or even contending necessarily.  What it does is puts us in a very favorable position with a lot of home games left."