Wheaton, Ill. -- Returning to Joe Bean Stadium to host a CCIW Tournament semifinal for the second-consecutive season, the Wheaton men's soccer team welcomed the Illinois Wesleyan Titans to campus for the second time this fall on Wednesday night. But this evening's postseason match unfolded very differently than the two sides' first contest, won 1-0 by the Thunder on Homecoming weekend. The Titans arrived in Wheaton fresh off of a penalty shootout upset over third-seeded North Park last Saturday, and the #6 seed in this year's conference tournament kept their Cinderella run alive with a second shootout victory on Wednesday following a pulsating 3-3 draw. Wheaton's season record now stands at 11-5-2, while Illinois Wesleyan has advanced to the CCIW Championship match, where they will take on the Carthage Firebirds in Kenosha on Saturday night.

Despite the even scoreline through 110 minutes of play, the box score statistics from tonight's semifinal show a clear advantage in Wheaton's favor. The hosts out-shot the visiting Titans, 29-15, and put five more efforts on goal than IWU, forcing the opposition goalkeeper to make ten saves. The Thunder earned ten corner kicks while limiting Illinois Wesleyan to just one and enjoyed two-thirds of the game's possession. Wednesday's matchup was a heated affair, as a total of 40 fouls were called and four yellow cards were brandished by the official, three of which were shown to the Titans.

CCIW Goalkeeper of the Year Mason Escalante made six saves in the Thunder net, including a penalty kick denial in the shootout. Pryse Anderson, who joined Escalante on the recently announced All-Conference First Team, scored a pair of goals to move his season total up to 16, a mark that is now tied for first in the conference. Noah Penner tallied Wheaton's opening goal of the night from the penalty spot. Nati Hamilton, Cameron Hoober, and Kyle Johnson all registered two shots on target this evening. Caleb Davis, Caedmon Gross, and John Hearn each contributed an attempt on goal, and Mason Louth earned Wheaton's lone assist of the match to increase his team-leading tally to seven on the year. 

The Titans began the match in astonishing fashion, bagging two goals in the opening five minutes to stun their favored hosts. The second strike was an own goal that took an unlucky deflection off of a Wheaton defender, but the game's first score came from a well-designed throw-in routine that produced a floated ball to the back post which caught the Thunder defense unaware and was stabbed home from close range. Anderson accounted for Wheaton's first shot on target around the ten-minute mark, and from that point on, the home side controlled proceedings. Illinois Wesleyan did not register another effort on goal until 42 minutes had passed, and the Thunder dominated possession and enjoyed almost all of the attacking opportunities. Halfway through the opening frame, an IWU player was penalized for a handball in his own box, and Penner stepped up to take the resulting penalty kick. A calm finish in the upper right side of the net halved the deficit and gave the momentum to the number two team in the conference.

The guests managed to maintain their 2-1 advantage until halftime, but the trajectory of the contest had changed, and Wheaton went into the break confident in their powers of recovery. The Thunder began the second 45 in the aggressive way that they had ended the first period and needed just five minutes to find the equalizer. Louth picked up the ball on the left wing, dribbled past a pair of IWU defenders at speed, and just when it appeared as though he would run out of room at the left byline, the sophomore midfielder slipped a sharp pass into the feet of Anderson at the near post. The junior forward wasted no time and flicked the ball with the outside of his foot for a delicate first-touch finish, squeezing his shot past the diving Titan goalkeeper in the bottom corner to bring the hosts back to level pegging. Having been the side in the ascendency after the opening ten minutes, Wheaton were not interested in handing the initiative back to their visitors and maintained their attacking intensity, searching for a go-ahead goal in front of a vocal home crowd. 

With 15 minutes left in regulation, the Thunder won a free kick in the right midfield area, and Louth's delivery into the box was not properly cleared by the Titans. After taking a couple of deflections and getting caught under the feet of an opposition defender, the ball fell to Anderson, who once again reacted quickly inside the box and lifted his shot over the sprawling keeper to push Wheaton into the lead. Illinois Wesleyan surrounded the referee and claimed that the Thunder's top goalscorer had felled the IWU defender before firing the ball home, but the official waved off the appeals and confirmed the goal for Wheaton.

The match finally saw a sequence of reserved attacking play and relative calm in the following minutes, as the Thunder no longer needed to push forward for a goal and maintained their defensive control of the Titans. But a spirited and battle-tested Illinois Wesleyan team dug deep and found a dramatic late equalizer against the run of play with just over eight minutes remaining to keep their season alive. A scramble in front of the Wheaton net saw the initial Titans' shot blocked by a defender, but the ball fell kindly to an IWU attacker running in towards the back post, who quickly touched it in to set off wild celebrations on the visitors' bench. This prompted a frantic final stretch of regulation that saw both teams log multiple efforts on target in an attempt to snatch a late victory, but the two goalkeepers were up to the challenge and the score remained at 3-3.

Compared to the chaotic 90 minutes of normal time, the two ten-minute overtime segments that followed were relatively sleepy. Illinois Wesleyan tallied the lone attempt on goal in the first period, and Wheaton returned the favor after a brief intermission between the sections. The two sides still showed an interest in breaking the tie and avoiding a penalty shootout, but few tactical risks were taken, and the 20 extra minutes of gameplay failed to produce an outright winner.

Illinois Wesleyan came into the shootout having just knocked out a higher-ranked host via penalties four nights before in Chicago, while Wednesday's series of spot kicks marked the first shootout for the Wheaton men's soccer program since a CCIW Tournament semifinal in 2015. Penner scored from the spot for the second time tonight to cancel out IWU's opening PK conversion, before an Illinois Wesleyan miss off the post handed Wheaton a potential early advantage. Luke Engstrom came off the Wheaton bench as a penalty specialist and confidently rolled his shot in to push the hosts in front (pictured below). 
Three subsequent conversions from the Titans sandwiched scored penalties by Anderson and Nick Rodriguez, and Wheaton found themselves with a chance to seal a 5-4 shootout victory. But the next penalty attempt struck the crossbar and did not completely cross the goal line, so IWU survived by the thinnest of margins.

The away side had a chance to seize the upper hand in the shootout following this let-off, but Escalante (pictured below) came up with his second clutch penalty save in less than two weeks to tip the ball onto the post and keep Wheaton on top.
   The Thunder again failed to seal the victory with their next attempt, and an eventual conversion by the Titans put the pressure on Wheaton's Cameron Hoober. But the junior was up to the task and calmly slotted the shot home to keep the Thunder alive. Andrew Heeringa did likewise at the next opportunity, but after an Illinois Wesleyan player scored to give the visitors a 7-6 penalty scoreline advantage, an impressive diving stop from the Titans' goalkeeper prevented Wheaton from tying it back up and confirmed IWU's spot in Saturday's championship game. Remarkably, the Titans were victorious by the same 7-6 margin that decided their win at North Park last weekend, and Illinois Wesleyan will be feeling like a team of destiny as they continue to defy the odds in this week's competition.

While the Thunder men's squad will be disappointed with their results against Millikin and Illinois Wesleyan at the end of the CCIW schedule, Wheaton can take plenty of pride and confidence from a strong regular season that saw them assert themselves as one of the top programs in the conference. Illinois Wesleyan will attempt to complete a stunning run to the conference title when they head to Wisconsin on Saturday for the CCIW Championship, as they are set to face Carthage College, who upset top-seeded North Central in Naperville in another overtime thriller this evening.