KENOSHA, Wis. – The Carthage College men's basketball team suffered their second-straight loss on Saturday night in their first home game in nearly a month, falling to the Millikin University Big Blue at Tarble Arena, 69-59.
 
The loss drops the Red Men to 1-4 in the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin and to 6-8 overall, while Millikin improves to 8-5 and 2-3 in league-play.
 
Kienan Baltimore led the Red Men on the night with 18 points in the loss on 8-17 shooting followed by Jordon Kedrowski with 16 on 6-19 shooting from the field.  Sean Johnson led Carthage on the boards with seven rebounds and added four blocks on the defensive end.
 
The Red Men held an early lead in the first half, up 16-11 with 12:13 remaining in the opening 20 minutes, but the momentum swung in Millikin's favor with a 14-3 run that saw the Big Blue take a 27-19 lead with 7:12 remaining in the half. Millikin would eventually push the lead to as many as 12 points in the half, 39-27, before a Kedrowski three at the buzzer cut the deficit to eight at the half, 42-34.
 
Trailing by 11 nearly midway through the second half, 51-41, the Red Men went on 13-4 run to cut the Big Blue lead to just two at 55-53.  The Red Men had a number of chances to tie or take the lead over the next 2:02 but Carthage went 0-6 from the field over that time and were never able to fully erase the deficit.  After cutting the Big Blue lead to two, the Red Men went more than three minutes without a point, allowing Millikin to hold on a pull away late for the ten-point win.
 
As a team the Red Men were 22-53 from the field for 41.5% but struggled from three, going just 5-17 for 29.4%, while the Big Blue shot 27-61 and 7-14 from three and owned a plus-17 edge in rebounding, 42-26.

The Red Men will return to action at Tarble Arena on Wednesday, January 9, as Carthage hosts CCIW in-state rival Carroll University.  Tip-off is set for 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday.