Elmhurst, Ill.- The 20-ranked Thunder men's basketball wrapped up their regular season on Tuesday night with a 70-55 victory over the Elmhurst Bluejays at R.A. Faganel Hall in Elmhurst. Tyler Peters# filled the stat sheet with 22 points, seven rebounds, seven assists and four steals. With the performance, Peters is the first Thunder player since Joel Kolmodin in 2003-04 to win the CCIW scoring title.

With the victory, Wheaton improves to 20-5 overall and 10-4 in the CCIW. Elmhurst ended their season 6-19 and 2-12 in conference play.

Wheaton jumped out to a 12-7 lead in the first half, which would be the biggest lead of the half for either team. The first half featured five ties and seven lead changes before the Thunder finally ended the half with a 30-26 lead.

A close game was blown open to start the second half when the Thunder opened the half on 9-1 run to push the lead to double digits.  The Bluejays answered with a 6-0 run to cut the lead to six but Michael Kvam (PICTURED RIGHT) responded for the Thunder with three-pointers on consecutive possessions to restore the lead. Wheaton would keep the lead above nine for the remainder of the game and a dunk by Peters with just over a minute remaining gave the Thunder their biggest lead of the night at 17 points en route to a 70-55 victory.

Wheaton shot 24-49 (49%) from the field and 7-16 (43.8%) from the three-point line but struggled from the charity stripe shooting just 15-26 (57.7%). The Bluejays were 18-54 (33.3%) from the field, 5-15 (33.3%) from beyond the arc and 14-21 (66.7%) from the free throw line.

Nate Haynes scored 18 points and grabbed seven rebounds, securing the CCIW rebounding title in the process. Kvam finished with 12 points and Brayden Teuscher and Peter Smith each added seven for the Thunder.

Nick Sanford led three Bluejays in double figures with 14 points.

Wheaton has earned the 3-seed in this weekend's CCIW Tournament. The Thunder will face the 2-seed North Central in Friday's semifinal at 5 PM at the Shirk Center in Bloomington, Ill. North Central (22-3, 11-3) is ranked fifth in the latest D3hoops.com poll. Top seeded and third-ranked Illinois Wesleyan (21-4, 13-1) will host #4-seed Augustana (18-7, 8-6) in the other semifinal. The CCIW Championship is scheduled for 7:30 PM on Saturday in Bloomington.