Pride drop Senior Day game against St. Ambrose
DUBUQUE, Iowa - Playing their final home game of the season, the Clarke University football team welcomed St. Ambrose University to Dalzel Field on Saturday afternoon as the Fighting Bees came away with a 50-22 win.
Prior to the start of the game, the Pride honored 18 seniors for Senior Day that included Video Coordinator Brock Osthoff and players Eldon Haynes, Vince Richardson, Malik Inabinette, Delyno Brown, Garrett Atkinson, Jayden Wyer, Andrew Richards, Ahmed Shamila, Zach Juarez, Dylan Bangs, Dakota Landry, Jonah Robinson, KJ Brown, Mark Edwards IV, Rondell Juba, Ricci Giambruno, and Bryan Valdes.
As the game started, it was a slow start to the first quarter, due in part to the long methodical drive by the Fighting Bees that resulted in a touchdown on a 17-play, 71-yard drive that took 8:16 of time in the first after forcing a CU turnover on downs in their opening drive.
The drive was capped off with a Tomele Staples six-yard touchdown pass to running back Maximo Vasquez as the drive would finish with both teams scoring as Clarke's Gabe Guyton would block the extra point attempt for Jordan Summage to scoop the ball up and return it all the way back for a two-point play for St. Ambrose to lead 6-2.
Getting into the second quarter, the offensive action would ramp up but unfortunately for the Pride it would end up being fairly one side after the two teams traded touchdowns as SAU's Jalen Coleman caught a 47-yard touchdown pass from Staples before Jackson Ostrander would score on a 30-yard pass from Carson Estrada to make it 13-8.
From that point on, the Staples to Coleman connection would dominate the gameas they would hook up for two more scores in the second quarter for touchdowns of 35 and 29 yards before Staples ended the half with a 40-yard touchdown strike to Kameron Bohnsack to make it a 34-8 game at halftime.
Coleman would score the lone touchdown of the third quarter to extend the Fighting Bees lead to 41-8 as Clarke would score a pair of long touchdown passes in the fourth quarter on a 69-yard pass to Roland Hazard Jr. then a 50-yard completion to Riley Hawkins but a safety and a St. Ambrose rushing touchdown for Calvin Lee would get the final score to 50-22 as the clocks hit zero.
Despite the Pride holding St. Ambrose to just three net yards rushing, Staples threw for 452 yards and six touchdowns while Coleman caught four of those touchdowns and a total of 13 passes for 244 yards, two more yards than he had receiving on the season coming into the game.
Clarke's passing game saw a few high notes as Estrada threw for a career-high 274 yards and three touchdowns but also threw two interceptions with Hazard Jr. also setting a new career-high in receptions (9) and yards (162) as the main target for CU on the day.
Pride football has one game remaining as they will play on the road to close out 2024 when they travel to Canton, Mo. to face Culver-Stockton College on Nov. 16 with a 1:00 p.m. CT scheduled kickoff.