Elmore's career day powers Pride to first victory of 2023
DUBUQUE, Iowa - Returning home for the first time in the month of September, the Clarke University football team used the home cooking to get their first win of the season with a 27-24 victory over Central Methodist University on Saturday afternoon.
The game had a feeling of the Pride being in control for a majority of the game despite the final score only showing a three-point margin and the Eagles holding a brief, three-point lead after the first possession of the second half CU led for all but the first 11:09 of the first half and for all but about two minutes of the second half.
After punts on each of both teams' first two drives, the last of which was a CMU punt from Evan Workman that rolled out of bounds at the Clarke two-yard line to give the Pride a long field to go down pinned near their own goal line.
Well they would go right down that long field behind a pair of long plays starting with a 53-yard run from Craig Elmore to get them into Eagle territory before a fourth down play would be a pass from Kenyon Williams to Jackson Ostrander that would pick up the first down and some as Ostrander would spin away from a defender to pick up 31 yards on the play and set up a first and goal from the eight yard line where Williams would call his number again and throw a strike on a slant route to put CU up 7-0.
Another big gain play would put Clarke in scoring position in their next drive as Williams would drop a deep ball perfectly into the hands of Jaquan Graham as Graham would speed for an 80 yard gain to get caught and brought down at the CMU six yard line before Williams would be forced to scramble on the very next play but he would scoot into the end zone for a six-yard rushing score to make it a 14-0 Pride lead late in the first quarter.
As the Eagles would be forced to punt once again, Clarke was looking to move the football again as they got into CMU territory again before unfortunate footing would create a turnover for Central Methodist but penalties on their ensuing offensive possession would force them to punt again.
That turnover looked to create a bit of a stall into the Pride offense as they would punt on their last three drives of the first half as the defense held tight for most of the remainder of the opening 30 minutes as a crack was shown on a Kam Cole 40-yard touchdown run for CMU that would lead to a botched PAT snap but the Eagles would convert a scramble pass for two points to make it 14-8.
One of those punts for the Pride ended up being blocked as Ben Jaeger was punting from his own end zone and KeShawn Wilson broke through to block it but fortunately for CU, Jaeger fell on the ball for it to only result in a safety and make it a 14-10 game instead of a tie game if CMU were to have fallen on the ball for a touchdown.
With the game at 14-10 coming out of the halftime break, Central Methodist would waste little time to get their first lead of the game as their first play of the game was a Joe Cambridge pass to Arron Edwards for 62 yards and three plays later Cambridge would hit Quinn Whitley for an 18-yard touchdown pass and make it a 17-14 lead for the Eagles in a four-play, 84 yard drive that took less than two minutes.
Clarke's first drive of the second half saw the Pride go back to what worked in the first half, a heavy dose of Ostrander and Elmore as Ostrander would catch back-to-back balls for 23 total yards then drew a pass interference penalty that would add 15 more yards down field where Elmore would take over with rushes for seven, 25, three, and two yards with that last run getting into pay dirt to help CU regain the lead at 21-17.
More trading punts kept the score at four points until late in the quarter when Elmore busted another long gainer of 25 yards followed by another pass interference to get Clarke into the red zone as the drive would stall out but Steele Fredricks would hit a 31-yard field goal to make it a touchdown game at 24-17 heading into the fourth quarter.
Scoring stayed quiet into the fourth when Fredricks nailed another kick, this time from 28 yards outafter Elmore and Jaden Warren added rushes of 18, 19, 18, and eight yards as the Pride opted for another field goal instead of going for a fourth and three in the red zone to secure a two-score lead at 27-17.
Those three points would turn out to be the game-winning score as the CU defense held strong until the Eagles busted out a quick, 40-second score on three plays on a Cambridge 29 yard touchdown pass to Chase Rankin to make it 27-24 but CMU was out of timeouts with 2:28 remaining when Clarke recovered an onside kick.
The Pride were able to run off all but one second on the clock before punting away and stopping an Eagles last-ditch play to latteral down the field to secure their first win of the season, which also marks Adam Hicks' first win as Pride head coach after taking the helm this season.
Elmore finished with a strong 192 rushing yards on 26 carries for a 7.4 yards per carry average and that one score as the Chicago, Ill. native came just five yards shy of the school record for rushing yards in a game that was set in the program's debut season by Jordan Brown.
Williams finished 16-28 for 246 yards in the air with his touchdown pass to Ostrander, who had his second 100-yard receiving game with seven catches for 105 yards and a touchdown.
Clarke will head back on the road for their game next week as they'll head to Olathe, Kan. for a noon kickoff against MidAmerica Nazarene University on Sept. 23 against the Pioneers.