KENOSHA, Wis. - The Illinois Wesleyan men's basketball team held off a furious late run to get a 69-64 win at Carthage, securing a place in the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin postseason tournament and giving Ron Rose his 100th career win at IWU.

The Titans improved to 17-6 overall and 8-4 in the CCIW, while Carthage fell to 12-11 overall, 6-6 CCIW.

"This is a great win for our group in a tough, tough place to play," Rose told Eric Stock of WJBC Radio in a postgame interview. "We want to make sure we're playing our best basketball heading into the conference tournament now that we know we are in."

With a 33-31 lead at halftime, the Titans exploded out of the locker room in the second half and scored 19 of the first 26 points to grab a 52-38 lead with 10:19 to play in the game.

"We had good defensive intensity and played very well during the last 10 minutes of the first half and the first 10 minutes of second half," Rose said. "We had some untimely turnovers that led to some baskets late, but got clutch free throws to win the game."

Illinois Wesleyan led by as many as 16 at 56-40 with 8:07 to go in the contest before Carthage's 19-5 run closed the Red Men to within two at 61-59 with 30 seconds left.

A late dunk by senior John Koschnitzky and six free throws in the final 14 seconds by senior Jordan Zimmer sealed the win for IWU.

The Titans, who committed 17 turnovers to only 9 for Carthage, dominated on the boards with a 38-30 lead and got a game-high 7 from senior Eliud Gonzalez. Junior Kevin Reed added 6 boards.

Illinois Wesleyan made 22 of 49 from the field (45 percent) and connected on 6 of 18 3-point field goal attempts (33 percent) while making 19 of 24 free throws (79 percent).

Carthage, who had a 9-point lead at 22-13 with 7:40 to play in the first half, shot 39 percent (25 of 64) from the field and made 8 of 28 (29 percent) from 3-point range. The Red Men shot only six free throws in the game and made all of those.

Four Titans scored in double digits, led by Koschnitzky with 14. Zimmer scored 12, sophomore Andrew Ziemnik had 11 and Gonzalez scored 10.
Malcom Kelly had 23 points to lead the Red Men and was 10 of 26 from the floor. Max Cary scored 13.

NOTES: In his sixth season, Rose has a career record at Illinois Wesleyan of 100-60, a .625 winning percentage, and is No. 6 in coaching victories at the school ... One more win will tie him with Scott Trost, who had a five-year record of 101-37 from 2002 to 2006 ... The school's all-time leader is Dennie Bridges with a 667-319 record in 36 years (1965 to 2001).