Rock Island, Ill. - A late Thunder run came up short on Friday night in an exciting CCIW Tournament Semifinal matchup. After splitting the regular season series, Wheaton and Augustana found themselves locked in a tie game with less than three minutes to play. Augustana would close the game on a 10-2 run to pull out the 72-64 victory and advance to Saturday's CCIW Tournament Championship game against North Central. The Vikings improved to 21-5 overall while Wheaton falls to 17-9. Wheaton will have its postseason fate determined on Monday when the field for the NCAA Tournament is announced at 11:30 am.

Both teams came out hot shooting the ball with Wheaton (54.5%) narrowly edging Augustana's 52% in field goal shooting. Wheaton cooled off in the second half, shooting just 30% from the field to finish at 40.4% (21-52). Wheaton struggled from the three-point line, shooting 25% (6-24) and shot 69.6% (16-23) from the free throw line. Augustana shot 48% in the second half to finish at an even 50% (25-50) from the field. The Vikings also struggled from deep, shooting 28.6% (4-14) while shooting 72% (18-25) at the charity stripe. Augustana outrebounded the Thunder 34-28 with both teams grabbing nine offensive rebounds.

Leading by two at the half, Augustana opened the second half on an 8-2 run to open up a 45-37 lead just over three minutes into the half. Wheaton could get no closer than five for the following minutes before Augustana ran off nine straight points to open up a game-high 14-point lead at 58-44 at the midway point of the second half.

Spencer Peterson's corner three stopped the Viking run and opened up a subsequent 9-0 Thunder run that put Wheaton back to within five at 58-53 with 6:47 to play.

After trading baskets, Wheaton ran off another seven unanswered points and pulled even with the Vikings on an authoritative stepback three-pointer by Aston Francis, forcing an Augustana timeout with 2:53 to play and the game tied at 63-63.

Augustana would retake the lead on the ensuing possession with two Brett Benning free throws and another Benning toss pushed the Viking lead to 65-62 with 1:47 to play.

Kobe Eichelberger closed the Viking lead to 65-64 with 54 seconds left with a lay-up but Nolan Ebel answered on the next possession with an old-fashioned three-point play, starting a 7-0 Viking run to close out the game.

Aston Francis scored a game-high 26 points to lead the Thunder. Kobe Eichelberger joined in him double figures with 10 points to go with a team-high nine rebounds. Brett Benning led the Vikings with 20 points and 12 rebounds. Chrishawn Orange scored 12 points including five straight as part of Augustana's second half run. Nolan Ebel finished with 10 points.

Francis kept Wheaton afloat in the first half, scoring 14 of Wheaton's 35 points. Neither team was able to find separation in the opening 20 minutes with four points standing as the largest first half lead for either side. A 7-0 Thunder gave Wheaton its first lead of the game on a three-point play by Francis with 5:54 left in the half. Augustana clawed its way back into the lead, taking a 37-35 advantage into the halftime break.

Note Worthy: With his 26 points, Aston Francis became only the second player in program history to record a 700-point season...Francis also moved past Joel Kolmodin and Bob Whitehead into 26th on Wheaton's career scoring list with 1,315 career points.