Waukesha, Wis. - The Thunder men's basketball team dropped a tightly contested 77-70 game at Carroll University on Thursday night. Wheaton trailed for most of the game, but a late run by the Pioneers put the Thunder away, dropping Wheaton to 16-6 overall and 8-4 in the CCIW while the Pioneers improved to 8-13 and 4-8 in the CCIW. Wheaton will be back in action on Saturday night when the Thunder host Elmhurst College for Senior Night at 7 pm.

Aston Francis led all scorers, tallying 25 points and Luke Peters also finished with 20 points. Nyameye Adom tallied eight points to go with a team-high five rebounds. Francis and Anajuwon Spencer alos grabbed five rebounds. Troy Howat led three Pioneers in double figures with 13 points. Ryan Clarey and Charlie Soule each finished with 12 points. Both teams shot the ball well with Wheaton finishing at 50% (25-50) from the field despite a 30% (6-20) clip from the three-point line. Carroll finished at 47.5% (28-59) from the field and 26.3% (5-19) from the three-point line.

Troy Howat staked the Pioneers to early lead, hitting a trio of three-pointers in the opening four minutes, with his last coming on a four-point play that gave Carroll a 14-4 advantage. Wheaton would trail by as many as 24-10 on a Ryan Clarey lay-up for the hosts with 11:10 to play in the first half. Trailing by 13 with 8:39 to play in the half, Wheaton held Carroll off the scoreboard for the next four and a half minutes while the Thunder embarked on a 10-0 run to cut the score down to 26-23 following three-point plays by Anajuwon Spencer and Luke Peters. Tarren Hall's lay-up stopped the run but consecutive three-pointers by Aston Francis pulled Wheaton ahead at 29-28 with three minutes remaining in the half. A putback lay-in by Nyameye Adom tied the score at 32 right before the halftime break.

Wheaton pushed out to an early lead in the second and pushed their advantage to their largest cushion of the night when Kobe Eichelberger hit two free throws to put Wheaton ahead 43-39 just over three minutes into the second half. Carroll answered with seven straight points to retake the 46-43 before Francis tied it with another three-pointer. Ryan Clarey later broke a 48-all tie with a three-pointer that started an 8-0 Carroll run.Wheaton pulled back to within three on a lay-up by Peters with 7:37 to play, but the Pioneers again answered, taking advantage of a technical foul against Adom to hit four free throws, pushing the lead back out to seven.

Trailing 72-63 with 4:45 to play, Wheaton made a final push behind lay-ups by Peters and Spencer Peterson and pulled to within 72-70 on a Francis three-pointer with 2:14 to remaining. However, the Pioneers were able to hold the Thunder scoreless for the remainder of the game and put the game away at the free throw line for the 77-70 victory.

Note Worthy: With two assists tonight, Luke Peters moves past Travis Senik (1996-2000) into eighth place on Wheaton's career assist list with 327 career helpers.