Naperville, Ill. - The Thunder baseball team wrapped up its regular season schedule on Saturday afternoon with a doubleheader split at North Central. Wheaton dropped the opener of the twinbill 11-1 in eight innings before claiming the nightcap 7-2. Wheaton finishes the regular season with a record of 24-14 overall and 14-10 in the CCIW. Wheaton's 24 wins ties the program record for wins in a season established in 2010 and 2017. The Thunder will open play in next week's CCIW Tournament on Thursday with seeding and matchups still to be determined.

Wheaton took the lead in game two with three runs in the top of the third inning. After loading the bases with one out, Ben Brittain's hard single plated two runs followed later by an RBI single by Jesse Welch to push the lead to 3-0. Graham Core added to Wheaton's lead in the top of the fourth with a leadoff single and moved to second on a throwing error and to third on a wild pitch before scoring on Jacob Garrity's single.

North Central cut into the lead with a run in the bottom of the fourth inning, but that would be all the damage they would muster against Thunder starter Kevin Champlin, who recorded seven strong innings on the mound, scattering five hits and striking out four. With Champlin in control, Wheaton took advantage of a shaky Cardinal defense to score two runs on two hits with two errors in the top of the seventh inning.

After the Cardinals pushed across a run in the bottom of the eighth, Wheaton answered again with a leadoff double by Matthias Haggerty who scored on Brett Albaugh's single to account for the final score of 7-2.

Ben Brittain paced the Thunder offense, tallying three hits and driving in Wheaton's lone run in game one of the doubleheader, before adding two hits, two runs scored and two RBIs in game two. Haggerty and Garrity each added two hits with Haggerty also scoring two runs. Albaugh drove in a run with one hit and also walked twice and added a stolen base.