PICTURED ABOVE: Eric Stevenson made 15 total tackles in Saturday's win.

Kenosha, Wis. – The Wheaton football team, ranked seventh in this week's D3football.com Top-25 poll, opened conference play on Saturday with a 19-14 victory at Carthage (2-1, 0-1 CCIW). Wheaton improves to 3-0 on the year and 1-0 in CCIW play with today's victory. The Thunder will host Elmhurst next Saturday in a 1:00 p.m. kickoff at McCully Stadium.

Wheaton reached the scoreboard first today as the Thunder scored the game's first touchdown on Wheaton's first drive of the game. The scoring drive was setup by a 26-yard punt return by freshman Phillip Nichols' 26-yard punt return that allowed the Thunder drive to start in Red Men territory at Carthage's 46-yard line. Nichols (PICTURED LEFT) was a key factor in the drive as well as he caught a 27-yard pass from Andrew Bowers on the second play of the drive to move the ball to Carthage's 21-yard line. Three plays later, Bowers threw a 28-yard touchdown pass to Trey Hanley to give Wheaton the lead. Griffin Bowes' PAT kick was good as Wheaton held a 7-0 lead with 11:33 left in the first quarter.

Late in the second quarter, Wheaton had an impressive defensive stand as the Carthage offense moved into the red zone. A lengthy drive for the Red Men setup first-and-goal for the hosts at Wheaton's six-yard line. A four-yard run by Carthage's London Townsend put the Red Men at Wheaton's two-yard line on second down. Thunder linebacker Eric Stevenson made a stop on Jamel Davis' run for no gain on second down, and on third down Stevenson tackled James Cobbs at the one-yard line. Junior defensive lineman Noah Spielman burst through the Carthage offensive line on fourth down to tackle Davis for a loss of one yard and kept the Red Men from scoring with 2:48 remaining in the second quarter.

The hosts' defense forced the Thunder to punt from its own four-yard line after a three-and-out by the Wheaton offense on the ensuing drive. The 33-yard punt was returned 27 yards by Carthage's Tommy Bazarek to the Wheaton 10-yard line. One play later, Bazarek threw a 10-yard touchdown pass to quarterback Ethan Olles. Carthage's PAT kick was good to tie the contest at 7-7 with 59-seconds remaining in regulation.

Each team's opening drive of the second half concluded with a punt. Following Carthage's drive, punter Fred McCann kicked the ball 41 yards to the Wheaton 12-yard line and Nichols returned the punt 14 yards with a nifty return to the Thunder 26-yard line. Bowers connected with Nichols for a 51-yard pass on the first play of the ensuing drive to move Wheaton to the Carthage 23-yard line. Bowers wasted no time as he tossed a 23-yard touchdown pass to tight end Zach Lindquist (PICTURED RIGHT) in the end zone to give Wheaton the lead. Wheaton's PAT kick was no good as Wheaton's lead was 13-7 with 7:44 remaining in the third quarter.

Nichols again played a major role three drives later as he returned a Carthage punt 70 yards to the end zone for a touchdown that increased Wheaton's lead to 19-7 with 3:30 remaining in the third quarter. Wheaton's two-point PAT attempt after Nichols' touchdown was no good to keep the score at 19-7.

On Carthage's ensuing drive, the Red Men used a lengthy 15-play drive of 77 yards that consumed 8:27 off the clock and ended with an eight-yard touchdown pass from Olles to James Cobbs.  Carthage converted the PAT kick to cut Wheaton's lead to 19-14 with 13:13 remaining in the game.

Wheaton's drive that followed the Carthage touchdown ended with an interception by the hosts' defense at Carthage's 23-yard line. The Carthage drive that followed stalled after seven plays at the Wheaton 38-yard line.
Wheaton started its drive with 6:42 remaining in the game at its own 20-yard line. Wheaton methodically moved the ball down the field over 14 plays, chewing up 6:29 off the clock. The Wheaton drive ended on fourth down at Carthage's 25-yard line with just 13-seconds remaining in the game. The hosts had a small amount of time in the game to mount a rally and Olles' pass on the first play of the final drive was incomplete. The Thunder defense punctuated its strong play with a nine-yard sack by Chase Greenlee with no time remaining to end the game.

Wheaton head coach Mike Swider noted of his team's defense after the game, "Carthage scored on a 10-yard trick play and the second touchdown came shortly after it looked like we had stopped them on third down, but we had a penalty. I can't ask for anything more from our defense. They played as good as any defense I have ever had. Our defense was just awesome today." He continued, "On offense we came through when we had to. They [the offense] got it done with that long drive at the end of the game and took a lot of time off the clock."

Wheaton ran for 34 yards in the game and threw for 219 yards to record 253 yards of offense. Carthage recorded 97 rushing yards and passed for 174 yards to register 271 yards of total offense.

Bowers completed 13 of his 24 passing attempts with two touchdown passes and one interception. Johnny Peltz was 1-for-5 on his passing attempts for 10 yards.

Zach Lindquist caught a team-high six receptions for 64 yards with the third-quarter touchdown to his credit. Nichols had a team-high 78 receiving yards on two catches.  The freshman also had 157 return yards (144 punt return and 13 kickoff return) in the game as he racked up 235 all-purpose yards in the game.

Swider noted of Nichols' punt return for the third-quarter touchdown, "We had just scored a touchdown when he returned that so his return gave us so much. It made it a two-score game, which is so much different than a one-score game."

Stevenson led the Wheaton defense with 15 total tackles, including 13 solo stops. Caleb Ashby (PICTURED LEFT) and Marcus Smith each made eight total tackles, including a tackle for loss (-1 yard) by Ashby. Spielman made four solo tackles, including three tackles for loss (-3 yards). Greenlee (PICTURED RIGHT) had three solo tackles, including the nine-yard quarterback sack to end the game.

Olles led the Carthage offense with a 164 passing yards as he completed 17 of his 41 passing attempts with one touchdown pass and his 10-yard touchdown catch. Davis ran for 65 yards on 20 carries and Cobbs caught a game-high seven receptions for 63 yards with one touchdown catch. K.J. Simpson and Moaso Bumba each had five total tackles to lead the Carthage defense.

Note Worthy: Norton's 70-yard punt return is the longest for a Thunder player since Tyler Langs returned a punt 80 yards in a victory against UW-Platteville on September 18, 2010...Wheaton has won 24-consecutive regular season games, a streak that dates back to November 16, 2013.