Jeff Koeneman picked the perfect way to end his college football career Saturday.

The final catch of the senior wide receiver’s career was a 21-yard touchdown pass with 39 seconds left that gave Carthage the lead for good in a 35-30 win at Wheaton.

“He’s a big-time player and he came up with big-time plays,” Carthage coach Tim Rucks told WRJN’s John Weiser on the WRJN-AM postgame show.

“I talked last night when I introduced each senior to the team, I told the whole team that, ‘Everyone in this room has had the pleasure of playing with one of the better football players that has ever played at Carthage.’ ”

Koeneman finished with 14 catches — one shy of Rob Garnes’ 2000 school record — for 134 yards.

The last of the Barrington, Ill., product’s school season-record 94 catches this season and the last of his career-record 258 receptions allowed Carthage to cap a 7-play, 60-yard drive that took 1:06.

“I’ll be honest, and I don’t sound like I’m talking big, I knew we’d win the game,” Rucks said. “I knew on that last drive, we’d score. I just really, really believed that. I didn’t get worked up or excited about it or anything. I said, ‘You give us the ball. We’re as good as anyone.’

“Plus, I felt our kids believed. You could feel it on the sideline.”

Wheaton then got as far as the Carthage 44-yard line but a pair of sacks by Brad Fortney and Marcus Williams’ pass defense on the last play stalled the Thunder.

Carthage ended the season with a three-game winning streak and finished 7-3 and 4-3 and tied for third in the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin.

“This was a big win for our football program,” Rucks said. “It gives us a good boost and a good charge in recruiting.

“In our kids’ minds, they feel better about themselves and they got over a little bit of a hump. We were 5-5 last year and we go up to 7-3 with a lot of kids returning. It’ll be a good group coming back. It’s huge for us. 7-3 sounds a lot better than 6-4, that’s for sure.”

Carthage’s Evan Jones threw for 350 yards and three touchdowns and was not sacked in 56 attempts. John Seigler ran for 95 yards and Nick Merchut caught two touchdown passes as Carthage rolled up 471 yards of offense while running 88 plays.

Wheaton (7-3, 4-3) took its biggest lead of the game early in the second half on a 1-yard pass from Sean Norris to Danny Hindman.

The Red Men regained the lead with a 17-0 run on a 20-yard field goal by Tyler Funk, a 1-yard run by Jones and a 5-yard pass from Jones to Merchut.

Wheaton took its last lead with 1:45 to go when Norris found Freddy Ellis with a 31-yard scoring pass.

Jones went 4-for-6 for 34 yards on the winning drive. Carthage got a break when Wheaton was called for holding on a play when Jones fired an incompletion on 3rd-and-8 from the Thunder 21-yard line.

The Red Men took advantage of the automatic first down with the game-winning touchdown pass.

— Compiled by David Marran