NAPERVILLE, Ill. - A slow start against a hot-shooting team spelled defeat for the first time in league play for the No. 17-ranked Illinois Wesleyan men's basketball team as the Titans fell to North Central 82-69 on Tuesday (Jan. 17).

The Titans, whose nine-game winning streak was snapped, are now 13-3 overall and 4-1 in the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin, in a three-way tie for the league lead with North Central and Wheaton.

The Cardinals improved to 10-6 overall and Wheaton is also 13-3 and 4-1 after a 79-73 win at home over Carthage on Tuesday.

The Titans, who surrendered 80 points or more for the first time since Nov. 26 in a loss at Ripon, fell behind 12-2 early in the game with 15:41 to go in the first half and trailed by as many as 17 at 40-23 with 2:16 before halftime. The Cardinals led by 14 (42-28) at intermission.

The Cardinals extended their halftime advantage to 19 points (55-36) with 13:06 before the Titans mounted a comeback, scoring nine straight points to close to within nine at 63-54 with 7:11 to go after an Eric Dortch steal and dunk.
The Cardinals stemmed the run by scoring eight of the next nine points to get ahead 71-55 with 4:02 remaining and held on for the win.

"It seemed that we were running uphill all night long," IWU head coach Ron Rose told WJBC radio in a postgame interview. "We had been playing at a pretty high level and tonight it seems we didn't have a great mental focus on what we were trying to accomplish.
"North Central runs a good offense and we did a lot of undisciplined thing on the defensive end. Tonight we did not finish plays well and didn't do things we needed to do to get back in the game after falling behind early."

The Titans shot 39 percent from the field (24 of 61) and connected on nine of 25 3-point field goal tries (36 percent). IWU made 12 of their 20 free throw attempts.
North Central shot a hot 56 percent (20 of 36) from the field and made 37 of 43 free throws (86 percent). The Cardinals won the rebound war, 35-27, as Aaron Tiknis grabbed seven boards.

Senior Eliud Gonzalez led the Titans with 15 points  and senior John Koschnitzky had 11 points before fouling out while junior Kevin Reed added 10 points with a team-high seven rebounds. Jordan Zimmer also scored 10 points.

Charlie Rosenberg came off the bench and scored 16 points in the Cardinals' victory with CJ Goldthree contributing 13 and Derek Raridon had 12.

Illinois Wesleyan will be on the road again Saturday night for a 7:30 p.m. game against Elmhurst.