Bloomington, Ill. - The Thunder volleyball team fell in straight sets in a road match at Illinois Wesleyan on Tuesday night. The Thunder fell to 7-13 overall and 0-2 in CCIW play with a 25-21, 25-17, 25-16 loss to the Titans. Illinois Wesleyan improves to 16-4 overall and 2-1 in conference play.

Four straight points early in the first set gave the Titans a quick 7-2 advantage at the Shirk Center but the Thunder rallied to cut the deficit to 9-8 before the Titans answered back with another four straight points. Wheaton was able to hang close and trailed just 23-21 prior to the Titans closing the set.

The Titans also led wire-to-wire in the second and third sets, turning a three-point lead early in the set into a 16-8 lead midway through the set, leading to the 25-17 victory in the second set. The Titans used a similarly timed spurt in the third set to take a 16-9 lead before closing the set at 25-16.

Shelby Knowles led the Thunder with 10 kills and added 11 digs. Kelli Manning led Wheaton with 20 digs. Ashley Torok assisted on a team-high 14 points.

"I was pretty disappointed with our performance," head coach Brittany Smith noted of her team's performance. "I thought we made some improvements over the last week but just couldn't get all the aspects of our game working tonight. We lacked a sense of urgency throughout the match and missed an opportunity to try to steal an important conference win."

"Illinois Wesleyan is a very aggressive team and played a very good match tonight," she continued. "I'm looking forward to the chance to regroup for our nonconference match on Friday and conference play again next week."

Wheaton will step away from conference play on Friday night when the Thunder host Aurora at 5 PM at King Arena.