KENOSHA, Wis. – The Carthage College Red Men dropped an exciting College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin basketball game on Wednesday night, falling in Tarble Arena, 79-75, to the Cardinals of North Central College.
 
With the loss the Red Men fall to 11-8 on the season and 6-4 in the CCIW, while the Cardinals improve to 15-5 and 8-3 in the league.
 
"Tonight was a very frustrating.  We put ourselves in position to win the game, actually took the lead in the second half, but give them credit; they made the plays when they needed to," said head coach Bosko Djurickovic after the loss.  "Alex Sorensen, who is arguably the best player in the league came up with two big three's, which has not been the better part of his game this year, but he excelled late in the game.  We still had opportunities at the end but weren't quite able to capitalize."
 
Despite winning the battle on the boards the Red Men trailed at the half by four, 31-27.  Baltimore led Carthage in the opening 20 minutes with 12 points on 5-6 shooting from the field, but was forced to the sideline late in the half with two fouls.  North Central held a slight edge in shooting at the half, connecting on 40.6%, 13-32, to Carthage's 37.0%, 10-27.  
 
The second half started with a pair of runs by each team.  A 9-0 run after Kienan Baltimore gave the Red Men their first lead of the second half gave North Central a 44-36 lead.  Carthage answered moment's later with a 10-0 run, led by Brad Kruse with five points during the stretch, to give the Red Men a 49-46 lead with 12:34 remaining.  After a 6-0 run by the Cardinals to put them up three, Kienan Baltimore answered to tie the game once again at 55-55 with 9:27 left.
 
However, the Red Men would allow a 9-3 run that they would never be able to fight back from, despite Brad Kruse going point-for-point with Sorensen down the stretch, as each scored seven over the final minutes.  The Red Men just couldn't get the stop needed as they cut the deficit to two, including on a Steve Leazer deep three with seven seconds remaining.  But North Central hit 13-14 free throws down the stretch to seal the four-point win.
 
Baltimore, the sophomore forward, led all players in the game with 22 points on 9-12 shooting from the field and 3-6 from three.  Kruse and Derek Mason joined in double figures with 21 and 13 respectively.  Krsue finished 7-14 from the field, 3-3 from deep and 4-4 from the line.  Jordan Thomas led Carthage with ten rebounds as Carthage won the rebounding contest, 36-32.
 
Sorenson finished with 20 points and Connor Raridon had ten of the team's 18 assists in the win.
 
The Red Men will return to action on Saturday as part of the Basketball Alumni Weekend, when the Red Men take on the Big Blue of Millikin University at 7:00 p.m.  The day will start with the Lady Reds Alumni Game at 2:00 p.m., followed by the Red Men Alumni Game at 3:00 p.m.  The Lady Reds will open the varsity portion of the day at 5:00 p.m. against Millikin.
 
Looking ahead to the weekend and beyond Djurickovic noted, "You have five teams fighting for four spots.  We are one of those five teams so we aren't in any way, shape or form out of the conference tournament chase.  It will be a little tough to win the regular season conference championship this way, but we will see what happens."