KENOSHA, Wis. – The Carthage College Red Men dropped their home game on Saturday night at Tarble Arena, falling to the Elmhurst College Bluejays, 95-79.
 
The loss drops the Red Men to 4-5 on the season and to 1-2 in the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin, while the Bluejays improve to 2-0 in the league and to 4-3 overall.
 
"Anytime you play a team that is pretty evenly matched and the other team is ahead 8-0, 16-7, 20-9, it is a tough hill to climb," said head coach Bosko Djurickovic after the loss.  "I really don't think it was energy, but they targeted what they wanted to do, just like we do to start a game, only their shots went in and ours did not so we were chasing.  We never executed well enough to climb up the hill.  I thought when we were executing well and felt a bit of a run coming, Sean Johnson was starting to feel good, then he went down so that didn't help matters."
 
Just one game removed of their best team defensive performance of the season in the win over North Park on Wednesday, the Red Men suffered their worst night of the season, allowing a season worst .571 from the field for the Bluejays on 36-63 shooting.  The strong shooting performance allowed Elmhurst to lead wire-to-wire and build a 20-point halftime lead courtesy of 7-15 three-point shooting in the half, while the Red Men were 0-8 in the first half. 
 
The Red Men would find themselves down as much as 24 in the second half before they began to cut into the deficit with a 40-25 run that brought the score to single-digits at 88-79 with 1:42 remaining with Jordon Kedrowski leading the Red Men during the run with 21 points.
 
Kedrowski led a pair of Red Men with 20-plus point performances, as Jordon turned in a game-high 26 points on 8-16 and 4-8 from three, while Kienan Baltimore went 8-18 for 23 points.  Preston Laketa finished with 15 points and matched Baltimore for a team-high six boards.
 
As a team the Red Men shot .444 from the field and just .267 from three, while the Bluejays added a 11-25 three-point shooting performance to their strong field goal percentage.
 
Djurickovic closed with, "It is a crazy league this year.  You see the scores from around the league and know there is still a lot to play for.  So we need to try and get ourselves as healthy as we can and be ready for Beloit on Tuesday."
 
The Red Men will look to bounce back in their final game before finals, as the Red Men head to Beloit College on Tuesday, December 11th for a showdown with the Buccaneers.  Tip-off on Tuesday is set for 7:00 p.m.