Pride come up clutch for 27-23 win at William Woods
FULTON, Mo. - Playing in their final road game of the 2025 season, the Clarke University football team pulled out their second win of the season by a 27-23 final over William Woods University on Saturday afternoon.
A back-and-forth game in nature, the two newest programs within the Heart of America Athletic Conference traded touchdowns in the first half to a 14-13 halftime lead for the Pride after Jackson Ostrander-Krier's touchdown reception opened the scoring and Caleb Perry punched in the first of his two one-yard touchdown runs in the second quarter.
Ostrander-Krier's fifth touchdown catch came as a 27-yard strike from Carson Estrada on CU's first play of their second drive after Clarke was forced to punt on their opening drive but then an Owls fumble on a botched handoff exchange got recovered by Marcus Plair to give the Pride a short field, starting their next drive at the WWU 27-yard line for Estrada to find a wide open Ostrander-Krier to make it 7-0.
The Owls would answer with a seven-play, 82-yard touchdown drive but missed their PAT kick after Clayton Byer caught a seven-yard pass from quarterback Dontae Rhodes before the rest of the first quarter would go scoreless thanks to a Pride fourth down stop and interception on William Woods' next two drive, the interception coming on the first play of the second quarter when safety Mysun Rush-Esdaile picked off his second pass of 2025 grabbing the Rhodes pass in the end zone for a touchback.
Clarke would score off of another turnover, this time with a longer, more methodical drive following the Rush-Esdaile interception as Perry's one-yard touchdown came on the 11th play of the drive that went 80 yards where he ran the ball on seven of those plays for 42 of the 80 yards and Bradey Huseman spelled the junior back to add 27 rush yards of his own, including a 21-yard carry on a second and five to put CU in scoring range.
The next WWU score also came on a sudden change when the Pride were in the red zone and faced a third and five but Clarke had their own issue on a mesh-point exchange, fumbling the ball for Keeno Theadford to scoop it and run it 87 yards for a touchdown to put the game back at a one-point margin of 14-13 heading into halftime.
The Pride would trail for the first time int he game after the fifth play of the second half saw Rhodes score on a 37-yard touchdown run to put the Owls up 20-14 before Perry's second one-yard touchdown rush, this time on a 12-play, 70-yard drive where he ran the ball seven times again with 47 of the team's 70 yards on the drive, the biggest being a 20-yard run to put CU in the end zone.
As the game entered the fourth quarter, the kicking game became a factor once again with William Woods settling for a 31-yard field goal to regain the lead after a five-yard loss on first and goal from the nine yard line eventually saw the Owls need to convert a third and goal from the CU 14 yard line before Justin Sharkey hit the field goal to make it 23-21.
Only trailing by two, Clarke got stalled out offensively on their first two drives of the final quarter with a punt and a failed fourth down conversion but got the ball back with just under five minutes to go in the game.
This is where Estrada would put up his best drive of the game, going a perfect 4-for-4 on the drive with the first three passes going for at least 15 yards as he first hit Ostrander-Krier for a 15 yarder on the first play of the drive, found Riley Hawkins for 22 yards after a holding penalty made it first and 20, then getting into scoring range with a play action wheel route to Perry that he would catch and run for 43 yards all the way to the WWU 10 yard line.
With Perry off the field following the big play, Jackson Lindsay would take the first and second down handoffs to gain a combined four yards setting up a third and goal where Estrada would complete his fourth pass of the drive, this time finding Isaac Guerrero on a slant route for a six-yard touchdown catch to regain the lead for CU at 27-23 after a failed two-point try.
A William Woods penalty on the ensuing kickoff would give the Owls a long field but still having 2:32 left to score, a third and 10 pass from Rhodes would be picked off by Chadlin Seymore for the Pride's third interception of the game after Camden Schoor also grabbed his second interception of the season earlier in the game.
Clarke took over with 1:53 left around midfield and Estrada came up clutch one more time, hitting Zach Rinehart for a 10-yard completion on third and five to put the game on ice, where they ran the ball with Perry one more time on the new set of downs to force the Owls to call their final timeout and allow the Pride to line up in victory formation.
Estrada finished 18-for-35 for 210 yards and the two touchdown passes while Perry once again ran for a new career-high with 181 yards on 34 carries while adding three receptions for 51 yards with Huseman running for 54 yards on 11 carries, Hawkins catching five balls for 60 yards, nad Ostrander-Krier finishing with the two catches for 42 yards and the touchdown.
Pride football will host their final game of the regular season when No. 1 ranked Grand View University visits Dalzell Field for Clarke's Senior Day where kickoff is scheduled for 1:00 p.m. CT and Senior Day festivities slated to start about 30 minutes prior to kickoff.