Milwaukee, Wis. – The Wheaton Thunder men's basketball team returned to action on Wednesday afternoon for a non-conference matchup at Wisconsin Lutheran College. The Thunder looked impressive in earning the 83-56 victory against the Warriors.
The Thunder improve to 7-4 with today's win against WLC. Wheaton closes out the non-conference portion of its schedule on Saturday afternoon with a 2:00 p.m. tipoff at the Ratner Center against the host Maroons of UChicago.
Wheaton scored the game's first eight points in a span of three minutes to open the contest.
Devin Martin capped the 8-0 run with a layup for the guests.
Reid Olson drained a three-pointer at the 14:13 mark of the first half to extend Wheaton's lead to 15-5.
The Warriors battled back to cut Wheaton's lead to four points at 20-16 with 10 minutes left in the first half. The Thunder led 23-18 with 8:30 remaining before halftime when
Carson Grier tallied a layup to spark a string of eight unanswered points for the Thunder. The key run extended Wheaton's lead to 31-18 with 6:05 left in the first half. Wheaton's largest lead of the game was 14 points, which was the Thunder advantage at halftime as the they led 38-24 at the intermission.
The Thunder continued to maintain a comfortable lead in the second half.
Soren Richardson set the tone for Wheaton's strong second half with a steal of the ball and he dished off to
Carson Grier for the thunderous dunk that gave Wheaton 48-29 lead with 17:34 left in the contest. Wheaton continued to pull away in the second half as the Thunder earned the 83-56 victory.
Richardson led the Thunder with a game-high 18 points today, adding four assists with three steals. Richardson was atop Wheaton's group of five players that scored in double digits today.
Carson Grier had 17 points with nine rebounds, while fellow freshman
Reid Olson scored 16 points off the Thunder bench as he drained a team-high four three-pointers.
Kyan VanderWoude tallied 13 points with eight rebounds. Fellow sophomore
Devin Martin added 10 points with six rebounds, six assists and two steals.
Brady Wynja tallied eight points with 10 rebounds, three assists and two blocked shots for the guests.
The Thunder posted a 44.9% (31-of-69) field goal percentage for the game, including 29.2% (7of-24) from three-point range. The Warriors shot 26.6% (17-for-64) from the floor, including 26.1% (6-of-23) behind the three-point arc. Wheaton had a 63.6% (14-for-22) effort at the free throw line and the hosts shot 84.2% (16-of-19) at the charity stripe. The Thunder out-rebounded WLC 48-45 and each team collected 14 offensive rebounds.
Trey Luehring led the Warriors with 11 points and Sam Hans had a team-high seven rebounds for the hosts.
