On a frigid Saturday evening, the Alma College men's basketball team hit the road and fell to Wheaton College (IL) 89-70. With the loss, the Scots drop to 1-7 on the year and the Thunder improve to 6-3 with the victory Saturday.

"The final score does not indicate how well and how hard we played", said Alma Head Coach Sam Hargraves. "To beat a team like Wheaton, we need a little help with them having a bad shooting night - that did not happen."

"We executed our gameplan really well, and I feel like we got better tonight."

Alma started the game very aggressively and a layup by So. F DJ Beckman (Shelby /Shelby) put the Scots up 4-0 in the early moments of the first half. Wheaton answered with a 3-0 run to make it 4-3 Alma, but a triple by Sr. F Kyle Aho (Gwinn/Gwinn) stretched the lead back to four at 7-3. The Scots maintained the lead for nearly six minutes before a layup gave the Thunder their first lead of the game at 18-17 with just over nine minutes remaining in the half. Alma was unable to cut the lead by any more than nine and went into the locker room down 46-33.

Wheaton kept the momentum going from the first half and stretched to the lead to 15 before jumpers by So. G Scott Nikodemski (Rockford/Rockford) and Beckman brought the Scots within 11 at 48-37. The Thunder would string together a 14-0 run to extend the lead to 72-44 with just under 11 minutes remaining in regulation. Wheaton never looked back and built a 20-point cushion that Alma was unable to overcome and the Thunder took the 89-70 victory on Saturday evening.

The Scots shot 23-of-53 (43.4%) from the floor and went six-of-18 from beyond the arc on Saturday. Alma bested Wheaton in bench points (23-19) and had nine turnovers compared to 14 by the Thunder.

Beckman led the Scots with 14 points on 5-of-7 shooting from the floor and added two steals. Aho chipped in with 10 points and Fr. G Chase Fairchild (Rockford/Rockford) finished with 11 points off the bench. 

Brayden Teuscher paced the Thunder with 24 points four rebounds and four assists, while Tyler Peters finished with 20 points, seven assists and five rebounds in the victory.

Alma is in action again on Monday, Dec. 16, when they travel to take on the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater at 8 p.m.