KENOSHA, Wis. – The Carthage College men's basketball team fell at home on Saturday night, dropping the second leg of the season series with the Wheaton College Thunder, 81-64.
 
The loss drops the Red Men to 7-12 on the season and to 2-8 in the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin, while the Thunder move to 15-5 overall and 8-3 in the league.
 
Carthage opened with a nice 10-3 lead to start the game, but it was quickly flipped as a 12-0 run by the Thunder to give Wheaton a 15-10 lead with 11:53 remaining.  Despite trailing for much of the half, the Red Men eventually tied the game with 3:35 remaining in the half at 27-27.  However, a 7-0 run by Wheaton from that point on gave the Thunder their largest lead of the half at the break, 34-27.
 
Carthage limited the Wheaton offense early in the second half and still trailed by seven, 41-34, with 16:38 to play, but a pair of back-to-back three-point field goals by Anajuwon Spencer for the Thunder quickly gave the Thunder a 13-point lead.  Carthage was able to cut the deficit to as few as nine but Wheaton ultimately prevailed in Tarble.
 
Kienan Baltimore led the Red Men with 19 points on 7-20 shooting, followed by Jordon Kedrowski with 14 points and Sean Johnson finised with 11, despite being in foul trouble most of the game.  Mike Canady led the Red Men with a career-high 13 rebounds. 
 
"I thought we had very good preparation for Wheaton tonight and if you would have told me we would hold (Ashton) Francis to 19 points and seven of those would be in the closing minutes and that they would shoot 42%, I would have told you we really did a good job and probably won the game," said head coach Bosko Djurickovic.  "But we shot less than 40% and it's been kind of a habit.  We can't seem to make the big play when it presents itself.  We got the lead cut down to a two or three possession game and they got three offensive rebounds on one possession and two on the next and it made it tough for us to climb back up that hill."
 
Francis, the nation's leading scorer, was held primarily in check by TJ Best on defense, holding him to 19 points on 7-20 shooting and 1-5 from three.  His 19 points is 13.4 below his season average and it is the first time a team has held him under 20 points this season.
 
Even in the loss history was made for the Red Men, as sophomore center Sean Johnson set a new single-season blocks record for the Red Men with his 65th and 66th this season.  His new mark breaks the record that was held Luke Johnson of 64, set back in the 2011-12 season.