Pride 2026 season comes to an end with road loss to Missouri Baptist

ST. LOUIS, Mo. - Entering their final game of the regular season with a "win and in" situation, the Clarke University men's lacrosse team was unable to pull out that win in a 17-9 loss at Missouri Baptist University on Wednesday night in St. Louis, Mo.

The Pride and Spartans took the field before the opening faceoff tied for the six seed in the Heart of America Athletic Conference standings with the top six teams able to qualify for the Heart Tournament and the win for MBU gave them the better record by a game over Clarke.

To the action on the field, it was a quick offensive start for the home team that carried Missouri Baptist to a 6-0 lead over the opening 12:10 of the game with the first CU goal of the game coming with under a minute to go in the first period when Jahvon Anderson scored with 52 seconds remaining.

That goal then scoring the first two of the second quarter gave the appearance of a Pride rally when Xavier Howard and Matt Warmowski found the back of the net to cut that score down to 6-3 almost exactly halfway through the second quarter, but the Spartans were able to score two more before halftime to boost their lead back up to five goals similar to the margin at the end of the first quarter.

Clarke's ability to score the first two goals of the of a quarter continued in both the third and fourth when Theo Deberghes and Warmowski scored ahead of a third-straight goal for CU when Aiden Gudenkauf got the game as close as it had been since the six-minute mark in the first quarter with the game then at a 8-6 lead for MBU.

Unfortunately for the Pride, Missouri Baptist answered with four-straight goals to finish the third to lead by six then after Gudenkauf and Warmowski started the fourth with their second and third goals respectively, it was a flurry of Spartan goals again to grow their lead to nine goals before Tyler Fleming scored his first goal of the game with just under three minutes to go in the game.

The major difference in the game may have come in goal with Missouri Baptist goalie Daniel Heinrich recording 16 saves on 25 shots on goal against while CU's Jack Fritz was only able to stop six of the 23 shots on goal against he faced as nearly every team stat finished (CU-MBU) close to even with turnovers going 24-22, faceoffs finishing at 16-14, shots going 37-42, and ground balls finishing at 33-40.

With this loss and their elimination from Heart Tournament contention, Pride men's lacrosse finishes their 2026 season with a 4-8 overall record and a 3-6 mark in the Heart as they head into the offseason expecting to return a majority of their young team from this season that includes their top-five point scorers in Howard, Fleming, Jackson Michaels, Warmowski, and Gudenkauf, as well as all three of their starting defenders in Ethan Cornett, Logan Dedrick, and Kaden Pemberton with Deberghes, who had an outstanding first season in navy and gold, expecting to return as the starting long-stick midfielder after a season where he recorded five goals and an assist while finishing the regular season second in the NAIA in caused turnovers and ninth in ground balls.