A 16-yard touchdown in overtime by junior running back Hope Adebayo pushed the St. Thomas football team into a narrow 20-14 victory after a bye week in a tightly-matched game against the University of San Diego on Saturday in San Diego.
The Toreros (3-7, 3-4 Pioneer Football League) kept the Tommies (7-3, 6-1 PFL) on their toes throughout the game. The Toreros’ defense pushed back against St. Thomas throughout the first half, only allowing the Tommies to score two touchdowns.
Adebayo pulled St. Thomas forward in the second quarter with a 37-yard touchdown, securing a 14-7 lead for the Tommies before halftime in the team’s final away game of the season.
It was the first time the Tommies went into overtime in over a decade. The last time the Tommies played into overtime was in 2010, against Linfield.
After a scoreless third quarter for both teams, the Toreros fought their way back into a 14-14 tie with a 3-yard touchdown by senior running back Isiah Williams in the fourth quarter, who finished the game with 179 rushing yards. In an interview with ESPN Radio, coach Glenn Caruso praised Williams’ performance and called Saturday’s matchup the “ugliest game we ever won.”
“The inability of the offense to get first downs in the third quarter was bad,” Caruso said. “The late, late third quarter, early fourth quarter inability to run our feet and tackle (Williams) — he’s a beast, he’s a really good football player … I think he made us look a little silly at times.”
Junior offensive lineman Alec Rasmussen also mentioned the scoreless third quarter in a postgame talk with ESPN Radio.
“We weren’t successful in the second half for a really long time,” Rasmussen said. “It took a lot of willpower on that bench to make sure everyone was still loving up on each other, and doing the right things for when we got back out there to give all the effort we could and end up leaving this game with a win.”
Saturday’s game echoed back to St. Thomas’ first season in the PFL, where the Toreros handed the Tommies their first conference loss at the Division I level with a final score of 27-24 on Oct. 2, 2021, in San Diego.
Senior wide receiver Jacob Wildermuth left the field in the first quarter with an undisclosed leg injury and did not return to the field.
St. Thomas is tied with Davidson (7-3, 6-1 PFL) for second place in the conference. Currently, No. 1 Drake (7-3, 7-0 PFL) could win the conference title outright if the team beats No. 4 Butler (7-3, 5-2 PFL) in their upcoming matchup on Nov. 18.
If Drake loses and both Davidson and St. Thomas win their respective upcoming matchups, there is a possibility of a three-way tie for the No. 1 spot, securing a PFL championship for the second year in a row for the Tommies.
St. Thomas football faces off against tenth-ranked Valparaiso for the Tommies’ final game of the season at 1:04 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 18, in St. Paul.
Owen Larson can be reached at lars6521@stthomas.edu.