Wheaton, Ill. -- For the third-consecutive season, the Wheaton men's soccer team earned the right to host a CCIW Tournament semifinal at Joe Bean Stadium. But Wednesday night's match marked the first time since 2015 that the Thunder were hosting their semifinal as the conference's regular season champions and #1 seed for the competition. In a scheduling coincidence, Wheaton returned to home turf after two weeks to face off against the last team it played before tonight's game, the North Central College Cardinals. North Central is the fifth seed in this year's tournament and won a penalty shootout at Millikin University in the quarterfinals to set up tonight's suburban rivalry. Wednesday's meeting was evenly-matched, exciting, and tense, but the visiting Cardinals eventually claimed a 1-0 upset thanks to an 86th-minute winner to continue their unbeaten streak against the Thunder since 2018 and book a place in Saturday's CCIW Championship match, when they will travel to North Park University. Wheaton ends the regular season and its conference tournament stay with a 10-7-1 overall record.

The full match statistics from tonight's encounter reflect a hard-fought and competitive battle. North Central posted one more shot attempt than Wheaton at a 21-20 split, with the Cardinals directing eight efforts on goal compared to the Thunder's six on frame. Possession of the ball was evenly distributed between the sides over 90 minutes, while the hosts earned seven corner kicks to North Central's five. 16 fouls were called in total, and while the head referee was happy to allow the game to flow in the first half, six yellow cards were brandished after halftime as the contest grew increasingly tense and chippy, with both teams receiving three bookings.

Five different Wheaton players put shots on target in Wednesday's semifinal, with Kyle Johnson being the only Thunder member to hit multiple attempts on frame. Pryse Anderson, Cooper Falling, Brock Seneff, and Luke Vander Kolk each drew one save from the Cardinals' shot-stopper tonight. Senior goalkeeper Mason Escalante was excellent between the posts in his final appearance at Joe Bean Stadium, making seven impressive saves to keep his side in the game when the visitors were threatening to go in front.

Despite seeing their back-to-back regular season title crown snatched away by the Thunder this year, the visitors would have gained confidence from their shutout victory over Wheaton one week ago, and North Central started tonight's semifinal brightly, earning a corner kick within the game's first minute. But it was the home side who accounted for the match's first clear look at goal, with Johnson (pictured right) forcing a quick reaction kick-save by the Cardinals' keeper in the fifth minute.     
Two more attempts either side of Wheaton's first corner of the night soon followed, but the Naperville side turned the momentum in their favor after this opening flurry. Three diving stops were needed by Escalante in a two-minute span to keep the match scoreless, as North Central started to string passing sequences together and grew into the game. A topsy-turvy first half then swung back towards Wheaton, with the hosts trying four more shots between the 29 and 31-minute marks, including Anderson's test of the opposition goalie. The next 12 minutes were considerably quieter, and it appeared as though both sides were prepared to enter the halftime locker room on a 0-0 stalemate. Each team drew a save from the other's shot-stopper within the last three minutes of the first period, but the opening 45 finished scoreless despite plenty of offensive energy and intent.

The second half began as more of a tactical chess match with both squads hesitant to take many risks going forward and adapting to a slower pace of play. North Central earned the first attempt on target after the intermission, with Escalante called into action again in the 61st minute to deny a Cardinals breakthrough. With 27 minutes left in regulation, the hosts made an All-Conference substitution, with starters Anderson, Johnson, and Mason Louth returning to the field after a period of rest, and this marked a turning point in the game's flow, as the Thunder began to see extended runs of possession and ratcheted up the pressure on North Central's goal. Wheaton struggled to break down its opponent's compact defense, but the top seed carved out a series of corner kicks within six minutes of this triple sub. The visitors continued to repel Wheaton's set piece deliveries and follow-up attempts and nearly snatched the lead against the run of play in the 72nd minute, but Escalante showed why he was recently named the CCIW Goalkeeper of the Year for the second time with a remarkable fingertip diving save.

As the game approached its 80th minute, the Thunder looked the likelier side to open the scoring, and Falling steered an attempt on frame to force a stop from Escalante's counterpart. Three minutes later, Vander Kolk timed his run into the box perfectly and nearly scored a memorable go-ahead goal from a diving header, but the ball bounced just over the wrong side of the crossbar and the visitors escaped. Johnson and Seneff would each draw saves from the NCC keeper in the following two minutes, as Wheaton continued to try to find a way to score its first goal against a stingy Cardinals back line. But the seeming inevitability of either a late Thunder winner or an overtime period was ended by a devastating counterattack from North Central with just four minutes remaining on the clock. The away side pounced on the ball in midfield and broke up the other way at speed to catch Wheaton by surprise, and a well-timed pass was played into the path of North Central's leading scorer on the year, who promptly buried his fierce effort into the lower left corner of the net to stun the sizable Bean Stadium crowd. The Cardinals were good value for a goal on the night even with Escalante's heroics, but having been the side in the ascendancy for most of the second half, this was a cruel blow to Wheaton's hopes of hosting its first conference title game in ten years. The Thunder had just a few minutes to find a dramatic late equalizer and extend their stay in the competition, but their neighbors held on to the slender 1-0 advantage and sealed a surprise place in the CCIW Championship one year after losing a home semifinal as the #1 seed in the tournament.

Wheaton's quest to retain its spot atop the conference next year will undoubtedly be a challenge, with Wednesday's match proving how competitive the CCIW is in the sport. The Thunder will surely miss key players from this season's roster such as Escalante and Offensive Student-Athlete of the Year Anderson when they graduate, but a 6-2 record in conference play, a 21st regular season title to snap the program's nine-year drought, and a healthy core of returners gives the team plenty of reason for optimism moving forward.