Elmhurst College Athletics

Box Score

ELMHURST, Ill. - The Elmhurst College men's soccer team's quest for an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament fell just a bit short, as the Bluejays fell to Wheaton College in a shootout at the CCIW Tournament Championship match. Officially, the game is recorded as a 2-2 draw. Wheaton won the shootout 3-1 to earn the CCIW's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.

Elmhurst grabbed a 1-0 lead in the 24th minute when Jon Brehm netted his sixth goal of the season. Matt Sterner sent a corner kick into the Wheaton box and the ball was headed back out to the top of the box where Brehm sent a low shot into the corner of the net.

Wheaton evened the match in the 60th minute after Elmhurst was whistled for a foul inside the box. Matt Swartz converted his penalty kick attempt to knot the score at 1-1. 

Wheaton grabbed its first lead of the match 10 minutes later when Stephen Mesko made a long run down the left side and beat Elmhurst keeper Sebastian Domczewski. 

The Bluejays evened the match in the 83rd minute when Sterner sent home a cross from Kyle Wright in traffic in front of the net.

Neither team generated many scoring chances in either of the two overtime periods and the game remained tied at 2-2 after 110 minutes.

In the shootout, Wheaton goalkeeper Ryan Seager made back-to-back saves on Elmhurst's first two shooters while Mesko and Paul Pesek each scored to give the Thunder a 2-0 lead in the shootout.. Sterner converted his penalty kick to cut Wheaton's lead to just one, but the Thunder's Damon Brown converted his attempt to give Wheaton a 3-1 lead in the shootout. The shootout ended when Brian Chrencik's attempt went off the crossbar, giving the Thunder the shootout victory.

Domczewski finished with seven saves in goal for Elmhurst while Seager recorded nine saves in net for the Thunder. 

Elmhurst will have to wait until Sunday (November 8) to see if they are selected as an at-large team to the NCAA Tournament. The tournament field is expected to be announced on Sunday night, while the tournament bracket will be revealed on Monday morning. The announcement will be made at www.ncaasports.com.