NAPERVILLE, Ill. – The Elmhurst men's basketball team scored a 66-57 road victory over ninth-ranked North Central College in a battle between a pair of Top-25 squads.
 
Elmhurst, ranked 22nd in the latest D3hoops.com poll, bounced back from a tough loss to Carthage earlier in the week, by limiting the Cardinals to only 34.0 shooting from the floor in a defensive struggle. The win by the Bluejays snapped a 10-game losing streak to the Cardinals and marked the team's first win in Naperville since 2009.
 

North Central (13-3, 3-2 CCIW) raced out to a quick 12-5 lead, but the Bluejays responded with an 11-2 run to pull in front on an Erik Crittenden jumper. With the score even at 28-28, the Bluejays finished the half on an 8-4 run to carry a 36-32 lead into the locker room at halftime.

The Bluejays pushed their lead back to six points early in the second half before the Cardinals answered back. North Central pulled even with the Bluejays on four occasions and took its only lead of the half on a Charles Rosenberg dunk with 7:21 left.  Elmhurst responded with a 6-1 run to take a 54-51 lead after Bryant Ackerman drilled a three-pointer with just under 4:30 remaining. The Cardinals pulled to within a point with 3:39 left, but the Elmhurst used four straight free throws from Kyle Wuest to open up a five-point cushion with 2:48 remaining.
 
A Brandon White jumper brought the Cardinals to within three, but Ackerman hit a pair of free throws with 1:55 left to extend Elmhurst's cushion back to five (62-57). Elmhurst held the Cardinals without a field goal for the final 2:30 of the game, as the Cardinals missed three three-pointers in the closing a minute. A personal foul and technical foul on the Cardinals' Jayme Moten led to four free throws from Wuest to seal the victory for the Bluejays.
 
Elmhurst struggled with its shooting, hitting just 30.9 percent (17-of-55) from the field and only 25.0 percent (5-of-20) from downtown. The Bluejays made a living at the free throw line, hitting 27-of-36 attempts (75.0 percent), including 16-of-20 (80.0 percent) in the second half. Elmhurst also outrebounded North Central 48-33.
 
Wuest led the Bluejays with 23 points, collecting 16 of them from the foul line while shooting 16-of-17 from the charity stripe. Ackerman added 12 points while Will Nixon finished one rebound shy of a double-double with 12 points and nine boards. Erik Crittenden came off the bench to total seven points and seven rebounds.
 
North Central shot just 34.0 percent (18-of-53) from the field, including 31.0 percent (9-of-29) from downtown.  Moten led North Central in the loss with 25 points while shooting 8-of-14 from beyond the arc. White came off the bench to score 10 while Rosenberg chipped in with seven.
 
Elmhurst travels to North Park University on Wednesday, January 21.