Wheaton, Ill. -- Tonight's Homecoming match and the men soccer team's second home contest in the space of three days saw Wheaton and the visiting Elmhurst Bluejays play out a scoreless draw in front of a sizable Bean Stadium crowd. The Thunder dictated long stretches of the match and conjured up considerably more attempts than their local guests, but the team could not find the decisive winner and Elmhurst rarely threatened to score at the other end. The first clean sheet of the season for the Wheaton defense means the team's record now sits at 4-4-3 and 1-1-1 in CCIW competition.

The home side enjoyed significant advantages in shots and attempts on goal, posting 23-9 and 14-3 disparities, respectively. The Thunder forced Elmhurst's goalkeeper into making an eye-popping 14 saves in the 90 minutes of play, and Wheaton earned 11 more corner kicks than the Bluejays tonight, but the winning goal never arrived. Six yellow cards were issued in tonight's feisty clash, with both sides receiving three bookings from the match official. 

Pryse Anderson was a man on a mission in this evening's game. Fresh off of his superb strike against North Central on Wednesday, the sophomore posted team-highs of seven shots and four efforts on target tonight. Alessandro D'Argento logged five shots and three attempts on frame. Harrison Lee was next in line for Wheaton, as he put both of his shot attempts on target. Five more Thunder players each forced a save from Elmhurst's Noah Reed. Reed's counterpart, Jack Krahel, was called upon three times in the Wheaton goal and earned the first clean sheet of his collegiate career.

Wheaton's best spell of the first half came in a ten-minute stretch between the 22nd and 32nd minute marks in which the Thunder registered five shots on target and fashioned a corner kick opportunity. The hosts then had three consecutive corners in the last few minutes of the first half, but none of these set piece situations yielded clear looks at goal. The second half of tonight's contest was one-way traffic, with Wheaton dominating the ball and firing off attempt after attempt and Elmhurst doing their best to survive using a counterattacking-heavy style of play. The Bluejays' defensive unit held firm and repelled each of Wheaton's forays forward with both direct saves by the goalkeeper and blocked shot attempts from a cohort of bodies between the Thunder attackers and the goal. While Wheaton will gladly take the clean sheet and use it as a building block, the team will also feel as though this was a match they deserved to win after controlling a significant majority of the game.

Wednesday sees the Thunder head back out on the road, as Wheaton travels to Carroll for a 7 PM kickoff. The men's team then returns to host Carthage next Saturday in their Senior Night matchup.