Sophomore running back Hope Adebayo rushed for two touchdowns and the St. Thomas defense forced three turnovers and stopped three fourth-down conversion attempts in the Tommies’ 27-7 victory over Marist College Saturday at O’Shaughnessy Stadium.
With the victory, the Tommies (5-2, 4-1 Pioneer Football League) extended their regular-season home win streak to 30 games and broke out of a fourth-place tie with Marist (3-4, 3-2 ) in the PFL into a second-place tie with San Diego. The Tommies are now only one game behind first-place Davidson, their Nov. 6 foe, with three games remaining in the season.
“Just really grateful that we have a team and a community that fights really, really hard, ” coach Glenn Caruso said.
Senior tight end Max Zimmerman turned a short pass from senior quarterback Cade Sexauer into a 51-yard touchdown. Adebayo followed it up with a 30-yard TD run to make it 13-0 Tommies at the end of the first quarter.
In the past, Caruso has criticized his team for only playing one good half of football, a sentiment that he echoed Saturday.
“I just felt like we were being a team other than ourselves (in the first half),” Caruso said. “We weren’t being as genuine or authentic, and we were allowing outside forces to control how we felt.”
Senior defensive back Luke Glenna had two takeaways in the first half, but the Tommies were unable to capitalize on either of them.
The first half was also full of special teams mistakes, including a missed 36-yard field goal attempt by sophomore kicker Louis Hyde and multiple high snaps.
A high snap on a fourth-down punt attempt led to the Red Foxes getting the ball at the Tommies’ 2-yard line. Marist senior quarterback Austin Day plunged in for a 2-yard score on the first play of the second quarter to close to within 13-7.
However, Glenna and the defense were determined not to allow another Red Fox score.
“We take a lot of pride in not giving up points to other teams, so no matter whether we’re on the short field or they start from their 25 (yard line), we’re always trying to keep them out of the end zone,” Glenna said.
Three times, the St. Thomas defense prevented Marist from converting fourth-down attempts, twice within 5 yards of the end zone. Overall, the Tommies’ defense allowed only 11 first downs and 3-of-11 third-down conversions.
Adebayo ran for a career-high 192 yards on 27 attempts, amassing more offensive yards than the entirety of the Red Fox offense. The Tommies’ defense only allowed 162 offensive yards for the Red Foxes.
“It was a pretty great feeling,” Adebayo said. “Offense did good; defense did amazing.”
Adebayo, who also contributed a 28-yard TD run with 5:55 remaining in the game, was coming off of a four touchdown, 182-yard performance two weeks prior against Stetson University, earning him a Pioneer Football League Offensive Player of the Week award.
“I feel like I’m a bit of a broken record because I say he’s such a tough matchup, but he has a weird combination, in a beautiful way, of toughness (and) vision,” Caruso said.
For the fifth time this season, the Tommies opened the second half with a scoring drive, capped by a 1-yard touchdown run by Sexauer that extended the lead to 20-7.
A fourth-quarter interception by first-year cornerback Yusuf Leak stopped any hope of a late comeback by the Red Foxes.
“The way we played the second half, I felt was as good as we played all year,” Caruso said.
The Tommies take on conference leader Davidson College Saturday, Nov. 6, at noon CDT in Davidson, North Carolina.
Cam Kauffman can be reached at kauf8536@stthomas.edu.