Elmhurst, Ill. – The Wheaton men's basketball team opened CCIW play on Saturday with a hard-fought contest at Elmhurst University. The Bluejays (4-4, 1-1 CCIW) escaped their home court with a 73-67 victory against Wheaton. Wheaton is now 3-7 on the season and 0-1 in CCIW play as the Thunder are off until next Saturday when they host North Park at 7:15 p.m. in King Arena.

Noah Hedrick led the Thunder with 18 points, and he added a game-high eight rebounds. Kyle Neibch scored 15 points, making three three-pointers. Freshman Devin Martin scored 13 points, with four rebounds, and three assists. Sophomore Soren Richardson tallied 12 points with four assists. Freshman Kyan VanderWoude scored six points with four rebounds in 20 minutes off the Thunder bench.

Wheaton shot 43.6% (24-of-55) from the field tonight, including 33.3% (6-of-18) behind the three-point arc. The Bluejays had a 40.9% (18-of-44) field goal percentage, including 39.1% (9-for-23) from three-point range. Wheaton shot 65% (13-of-20) at the free throw line, while the Bluejays had a 75.7% (28-of-37) effort at the charity stripe. Elmhurst out-rebounded the Thunder 31-26, as Wheaton owned a 10-9 edge on the offensive glass. The Thunder had an effective inside game tonight as Wheaton out-scored the hosts 34-12 in the paint.

Elmhurst never trailed the Thunder tonight, as the hosts jumped out to a 10-3 lead in the first four minutes of the game. Elmhurst's largest lead of the first half was a 19-point bulge at 28-9 with 7:35 remaining before halftime. The Thunder gradually closed that gap late in the opening half as Wheaton put together an 18-8 run to close out the first half as Elmhurst held a nine-point lead at halftime, 36-27.

Hedrick led the Thunder with 10 points in the first half as he shot 4-for-6 from the field. Richardson scored seven first-half points, and Kyle Neibch added six points. Kyan VanderWoude and Hedrick led the Thunder with three rebounds apiece. Dominic Trelenberg led Elmhurst with 10 first-half points, and he added four rebounds for the hosts. Jack Cherry scored eight points with three rebounds.

Wheaton came out strong in the second half as the Thunder had an 8-0 run to open the second half. Neibch started the scoring with a three-pointer. His basket was followed by a Richardson layup and Neibch drained another trey in front of the Thunder bench as the 8-0 run trimmed Elmhurst's lead to 36-35 with 18:00 remaining in the game.

The remainder of the second half was tightly contested. Elmhurst did manage to build its lead up to eight points on two occasions in the second half. However, both times the Thunder responded to cut the deficit. The hosts led 69-63 with 18-seconds left in the game when Hedrick collected his own miss and scored on the put-back to trim the Bluejays' lead to 69-65 with 18-seconds left. Free throws proved critical in the closing seconds as Elmhurst emerged with the 73-67 victory.