Wheaton, Ill. -- Returning to King Arena on Wednesday after consecutive road contests last week, the Thunder men's basketball team welcomed the Augustana Vikings to town for the first of their two regular season matchups. Tonight's game was a competitive battle in which the outcome wasn't decided until the final two minutes, but the visitors took the lead early in the first half and managed to stay in front the rest of the way to deny Wheaton its first conference victory. The Thunder drop to 3-12 on the season after Wednesday's 75-62 defeat, while the Vikings improve to 9-6 overall and 2-4 in the CCIW.
Noah Hedrick (pictured right) opened the scoring tonight with a coast-to-coast layup in the paint before answering Augie's subsequent three-pointer with a second bucket in the lane. But a pair of Vikings free throws
saw the Rock Island visitors move ahead at 5-4, and they would keep their lead for the remainder of the game. Augustana pushed its advantage up to 9-4 before the first of five
Kyle Neibch triples sliced into the deficit. Facing a 15-8 disadvantage seven minutes into the half, Wheaton dropped in four free throws on two possessions to stay within touching distance, and the guests' early foul trouble offered the Thunder a boost in their comeback effort. But Augustana held its host to just six made field goal attempts in the first half and repeatedly came up with well-timed baskets on the offensive end to not allow Wheaton to catch up on the scoreboard. The Vikings carved out their biggest lead of the opening frame at 35-22 with three and a half minutes remaining, but the Thunder scored the last five points of the half, including a jumper at the horn by
Soren Richardson, to build some belief heading into the intermission.
Augustana was determined to not let its hard work from the first half go to waste and began the second period with a three-pointer to stretch the disparity back into double-digits. The Vikings' lead hovered around ten points until the 13:40 mark of the second half when Neibch sparked a run for the hosts via another three-pointer. Wheaton was able to stop Augustana from scoring on five consecutive possessions over a five-minute span in the middle of the frame, and four different Thunder players made baskets in this stretch to draw the home side back within two points at 49-47 and get the King Arena crowd on its feet. But an and-one four-point play from Augie's leading scorer halted the Thunder's surge and allowed the Vikings to right the ship heading into the closing minutes. The two teams traded buckets in the following exchanges as Augustana worked to close out a road win. Wheaton refused to lie down and trimmed their visitors' lead back down to six points with two minutes remaining. But the Vikings came up with another dagger three-ball on the ensuing trip down the floor and shored things up defensively in the final seconds to see out a hard-earned victory.
The two sides posted nearly identical shooting figures through the 40 minutes of play, with Wheaton making 36.5% of their attempts and Augie 36.4%. But the visitors enjoyed more scoring opportunities thanks to their sizable 50-33 rebounding advantage and 15-5 tilt on the offensive glass. Three-point shooting also went in Augustana's favor on Wednesday, with the Vikings converting 38% of their tries and holding Wheaton to just six baskets from range. The Thunder took 13 more free throws than their guests this evening but only made 18 of their 30 fouls shots while Augie was a solid 14-17 from the line. The home side earned twice as many steals as their western Illinois opponents and put up more points in the paint and fast break points. But the visitors created more second chance scoring and higher production off the bench.
Neibch led all scorers with 23 points on Wednesday and drilled a joint game-high five three-pointers while also posting a game-best two blocked shots and grabbing a pair of steals. Hedrick accumulated 15 points and six rebounds while shooting 64% from the floor. Richardson had another double-figure scoring night with ten to his name and added four boards, two assists, and two takeaways.
Kyan VanderWoude brought down a team-best seven rebounds this evening, and
Ty Ferguson contributed five points off the bench.
The Thunder men's team will look to get back in the win column on Saturday night when it hosts a strong Carthage College squad in a 7:15 PM contest.
