CHICAGO, Ill. -- Led by a record-setting day by junior quarterback Brandon Bauer, the Illinois Wesleyan football team cruised to a 40-13 win over North Park on Saturday, Nov. 10, to earn a share of the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin championship for the second straight year.

The win gives Illinois Wesleyan an 8-2 overall record and an 8-1 mark in the CCIW, tied with North Central, who finished 9-1 overall and 8-1 in the league after a 55-12 pasting of Millikin. Illinois Wesleyan has 16 overall outright or shared league titles with the other conference championships have come in 1948, 1951, 1964, 1965, 1974, 1977, 1980, 1992, 1994, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2007, 2009 and 2017.

Illinois Wesleyan will now await their possible postseason fate with the NCAA Division III selection show for postseason play on Sunday, Nov. 11, at 4:30 p.m. Central time on NCAA.com.

Completing 27 of 41 passes for 431 yards and five touchdowns, Bauer eclipsed the single game passing yard mark of 426, set by John Rooney against Elmhurst in 1983. Bauer also became the school's all-time leader in passing yards with 6,746, pass completions with 566 and tied Lon Erickson's all-time mark with 62 career passing TDs.

Senior running back Morgan Alexander had 100 yards with one touchdown in 25 carries and also caught two TD passes. For the day he had five receptions for 41 yards.
Alexander is No. 5 in an IWU season with 1,026 yards rushing and improved to No. 8 in a career with 2,150 on the ground.

Bauer's favorite receiver was Dean Zigulich, who made eight grabs for 141 yards, while junior Jack Healy had six catches for 166 yards and three touchdowns. Healy has 1,705 career receiving yards, No. 14 all-time at IWU, and his season total of 1,137 is behind only the IWU record of 1,215 by Eric White in 2003.

The Titans, who jumped out to a 16-0 halftime advantage, rolled up 521 yards of total offense against the Vikings, who had 229 yards. Defensively against North Park, sophomore linebacker Keenan Scott made 16 total tackles (14 solo), including one for loss, had an interception and a pass break-up.

Senior Trevor Staley had seven tackles and an interception, his sixth of the year and 13th in his career, and Mike Murphy made five tackles with 2.5 quarterback sacks.

North Park quarterback Grant Borsch completed 21 of 35 passes for 153 yards and two TDs. The Vikings got 69 yards rushing from Mike Soracco and on defense, North Park had 11 total tackles from Uluao Letuli.