Pride pull away late in home win over St. Ambrose
DUBUQUE, Iowa - Returning to their home floor to continue early non-conference play in the 2025-26 season, the Clarke University men's basketball team earned their third win of the season by a 95-76 final over St. Ambrose University on Wednesday night at the Kehl Center.
A game that was tight and back-and-forth in nature, seeing six ties and six lead changes, through the first 30 minutes of the game, as it went from a 56-56 tie to a 64-56 CU lead behind a DeMarco Clayton layup, three free throws for Clayton after he was fouled attempting a three, then a three pointer from Carson Lindauer gave the Pride an 8-0 run for their largest lead since opening the game up 9-2 over the first 2:24 of the game.
The Fighting Bees would try to hang around over the final 7:30 of the game but a 9-2 run capped off by a Lindauer layup through a foul for the old fashioned three-point play put Clarke up 14 points with just over three minutes to go and SAU would never get the margin into single digits for the remainder of the game.
Getting as close to full strength since their season opener, both Sunny Parker and Lovre Stanovic returned to the lineup for CU after Parker suffered an early injury and Stanovic continues a path back from an illness to see more limited minutes hitting his onyl shot attempt from three in four minutes but Parker didn't seem to miss a beat, playing 23 minutes off the bench to produce a 21-point, 10-rebound double-double on 5-of-10 (50%) shooting from the field and going 10-for-11 (90.9%) from the free throw line.
Parker was one of three scorers for the Pride to finish over 20 points as Clayton poured in a game-high 26 points as he shot 7-for-15 (46.7%) from the field and, similar to Parker, went 10-for-11 (90.9%) from the free throw line as he added six assists and five rebounds, then Lindauer put up his season-high with 20 points on 4-of-9 (44.4%) shooting from three while adding eight rebounds, two steals, and a blocked shot.
The free throw line and three point line played big factors in the Clarke win as they shot 9-for-23 (39.1%) from deep compared to just 6-for-31 (19.4%) from the Fighting Bees with the free throw difference being even more significant in percentage and quantity as CU went 32-for-38 (84.2%) compared to 14-for-29 (48.3%) for St. Ambrose.
Those 32 makes from the free throw line is the most by a Clarke men's basketball team since almost two year to the day when they made 33-of-47 (70.2%) attempts from the line in a 98-90 win over William Penn University on Nov. 11, 2023 and the 84.2 percent mark is their highest mark from the line with over 20 attempts since they went 21-for-23 (91.3%) against Central Methodist on Feb. 4, 2023.
The rest of the Pride starting lineup saw Desmond Jones add 12 points, six rebounds, two assists, and a steal in 26 minutes, Ivan Vukusic have seven points and six rebounds, and Nick Bryant stuffed the stat sheet with three points, three rebounds, four assists, and two steals.
Clarke men's basketball won't be done with non-conference games for the 2025-26 season just yet but they will begin Heart of America Athletic Conference play when they travel to St. Louis, Mo. for their first Heart game against Missouri Baptist University on Saturday, Nov. 15 with a 2:00 p.m. CT scheduled opening tip.