Raymond pours in 37 as Wheaton dunks Elmhurst

For one final night Kent Raymond reigned over Wheaton College's King Arena.

In his last home men's basketball game the Wheaton 6-foot-3 senior guard poured in 37 points to lead the Thunder to a 78-69 victory against College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin rival Elmhurst on Saturday night in Wheaton.

"It was just one of those games," Raymond said while wearing a big smile. "You can't really say much about it besides the basket looked big, the ball felt good in my hands and the release was going pretty well tonight."

"First-team All-Americans are special players, and he's a special player for sure," Wheaton coach Bill Harris said. "Those first 4-5 possessions he came out and said, 'Well, I'd like us to get a lead tonight,' and he just got it for us. The first seven minutes of the basketball game he was very, very difficult to guard."

Raymond scored every which way: in the half-court offense and on the fastbreak; inside off a pass from a teammate or driving the lane; and outside with five 3-pointers, all in the first half.

Then there was a special second-half dunk.

"It's funny because I have one career dunk in my life, and you witnessed it tonight," Raymond said. "I told the guys that my goal this year was to get one dunk in a game, and before the game, so before the game I said, this is it. This is my last shot. I got the steal, got the fastbreak. It wasn't the most thunderous dunk, but it goes in the stat books as a dunk."

Wheaton got off to a big lead early, going up 16 at halftime. The lead peaked at 20 early in the second half, but Elmhurst cut it to 7 with 2:53 to play on Ryan Burks' basket.

"I was proud of how our players played the second half," Elmhurst coach Mark Scherer said. "We showed a lot of heart after a disappointing first half."

Wheaton iced the victory by scoring its final 7 points of the game at the free-throw line, where it shot 84 percent for the game.

But Scherer looked back only at the 23 points the Thunder scored off Bluejays turnovers.

"At this level of play you can't turn the ball over 16 times and win," Scherer said.

Saturday's result means Wheaton will get the third seed in next weekend's CCIW four-team tournament at Augustana. Elmhurst gets the fourth seed.

In addition to Raymond, the Thunder got 14 points from guard Ben Panner, 12 from Jacob Carwell (Timothy Christian) and 11 from Andy Wiele. Senior co-captain Phill Denham had 2 points and 3 rebounds in his swan song.

Burks scored 21 and Brent Ruch added 20 to lead Elmhurst.