Naperville, Ill. – The Wheaton College men's basketball team advanced to the championship game of the CCIW Tournament for the second time in school history, with a 69-56 win against Illinois Wesleyan in the CCIW Semifinal on Friday night. The second-seeded Thunder will play either North Central or Augustana in the CCIW Championship Game on Saturday night at 7:30 PM in North Central's Merner Fieldhouse. Wheaton enters tomorrow night's game with a 21-5 record, while the Titans fall to 19-7 on the year.

The Thunder jumped out to a 9-2 lead in the first three minutes of the contest. The Titans kept within seven points of the Thunder for much of the next 10 minutes, the last seven-point lead for the Thunder was at 17-10 with 12:25 left in the opening half. Wheaton extended its lead to 23-10 with 8:35 left in the first thanks to six unanswered points. Wheaton's largest lead of the opening half was a 17-point bulge at 38-24 late in the first half. The Thunder led 38-24 at halftime.

The Thunder maintained a lead throughout the second half, however, the Titans closed to within four points in a 54-50 Wheaton lead with 4:40 remaining in the game.  Thunder senior Jeremy Pflederer drained a big three-pointer to extend Wheaton leads back to seven points at 57-50 with 4:15 left in regulation.  The Titans could get no closer as the Thunder emerged with the 69-56 victory.

Senior Tim McCrary led Wheaton with 19 points and 12 rebounds. The All-American also distributed four assists, with three blocked shots. Sophomore Tyler Peters scored 16 points on 6-for-9 shooting from the field. Spencer Schultze scored 14 points, with six rebounds and three blocked shots. Pflederer rounded out Wheaton's double-digit scorers with 11 points and adding three assists.

Jordan Zimmer led the Titans with 17 points. Andrew Ziemnik scored nine points off the Illinois Wesleyan bench.

Wheaton shot 51% (26-51) from the field tonight, including a blistering 68% (17-25) in the first half. Wheaton shot 38.5% (5-13) from three-point range in the game and 50% (12-24) at the charity stripe. Illinois Wesleyan shot 30.4% (17-56) from the floor, with 15.8% (3-19) from behind the three-point arc and 73.1% (19-26) at the free throw line. The Thunder out-rebounded IWU 42-35 and 10 Titan turnovers helped lead the Thunder to a 10-3 advantage in points off of turnovers.