ST. PETER, Minn. – The Carleton College football team saw its season finale pushed back 24 hours to Sunday afternoon after Mother Nature dropped at least 6 inches of snow on the Gustavus Adolphus Campus. The Knights may have preferred another 15-minute delay as Gustavus scored 20 first-quarter points en route to a 23-13 victory. The Knights were their own worst enemy on this day, committing five turnovers.
Gustavus took the opening kickoff and marched 64 yards on only five plays to jump to a 7-0 lead on Logan Becker’s 10-yard toss to Cody Sukalski. After a Carleton punt, the Gusties’ first play from scrimmage was a 77-yard Becker-Sukalski connection to set up a Becker three-yard touchdown run.
After Gustavus recovered an onside kick, the Carleton defense held and forced a punt, which was fumbled by C.J. Dale and recovered by the Gusties. Four plays later Becker found Sukalski on a nine-yard scoring strike. The Knights could find little solace from a blocked PAT as they trailed 20-0 with five minutes still to play in the opening quarter.
The Knights defense finally settled in, yielding just a field-goal the rest of the way. Eventually, Carleton’s offense got rolling as well. Following a fumble recovery, the Knights went 43 yards in six plays, a drive capped by Jon Lien’s one-yard plunge.
After the Gusties coughed the ball up again, Carleton put together a 14-play drive that ended with Eric Murphy’s 23-yard field goal, making the score 20-10.
Carleton forced a punt in the final minute of the half, but quarterback Vaughn Schmid threw an interception on the first play from scrimmage, and that permitted Gustavus a 35-yard field goal by Tom Huepenbecke as the first half expired.
Murphy tacked on a 32-yard field goal on Carleton’s first possession after intermission, but that would be for scoring on this day as neither team reached the redzone over the balance of the contest.
Conor Lynch took over signal-caller duties after halftime and threw three interceptions, two of them picked off inside the Gustavus 10-yard line. Lynch finished the day 12-of-21 for 133 yards. Schmid was 7-of-15 for 81 yards and a pick.
The Knights totaled 79 yards on the ground, with Lien leading the way with 16 carries for 46 yards.
This marked the final game for 15 Carleton seniors, including Kilian Murphy , who hauled in a team-best eight passes for 65 yards. Rookie Chase Gottschalk had five receptions for 76 yards.
Carleton linebacker Mark Skoglund was everywhere, totaling a career-best 17 tackles (10 solo) and a fumble recovery. He finished the year as the MIAC’s leading tackler with 102 stops overall (44 solo). Skoglund was second among conference players in tackles (77) during MIAC games, three behind Concordia’s Zach Debeltz.
