Seniors put up strong fight in Pride's 2025-26 home finale against Peru State

DUBUQUE, Iowa - Sending off a large group of eight seniors from the Kehl Center for the final time in their careers, the Clarke University men's basketball team was unable to hold off a strong shooting performance from Peru State College in a 99-84 loss on Saturday afternoon.

Prior to tip, CU recognized Nick Bryant, Carson Lindauer, Devon Junghans, Bryce Luster, Michael Kascel, Jordan DiBenedetto, Austin Treece, and Joe Andrew as those eight seniors for their contributions to the Pride men's basketball program, both on and off the court over the past two-to-four years.

Getting five of the healthy seniors the start and the other coming off of the bench first, the group of six scored the first 16 points for the Pride, but the home team still found themselves down 10 at 26-16 before Lovre Stanovic and Jonovan Howard would provide some offensive sparks off the bench combining for 11 points over a two-minute stretch to cut the PSC lead to one at 28-27.

Continuously called a game of runs, this basketball game showed not much different with the Bobcats answering Clarke's 11-2 run with a 12-2 run of their own to push their lead back up to 12, but that wouldn't be the last run of the half with the visitors leading 47-33., the Pride finished the final three minutes of the half on a 7-0 run to enter halftime down 47-40 behind a pair of Lindauer threes, a Howard jumper, and an Ivan Vukusic triple.

Peru State got their lead back to double digits within the first 2:30 of the second half and would never see a single digit lead from that point on behind a stellar shooting second half that saw the Bobcats go 22-for-35 (62.9%) from the field and 7-for-14 (50%) from three to finish the game 40-for-69 (58.0%) from the field and 14-for-31 (45.2%) from three in a game where they only went to the free throw line seven times over the entire 40 minutes.

Lindauer was a rebound away from his second career double-double as a member of the Pride, scoring a game-high tying 18 while grabbing nine rebounds ad Howard scored 16 points off the bench and Bryant producing a career-high 13 points and dished out a game-high six assists while Junghans, Luster, Vukusic, and Stanovic all had eight points, DiBenedetto and Desmond Jones both had a make from the field, and Kascel added a free throw, four rebounds, and two assists in 22 minutes.

The Bobcats had four scorers in double figures led by 18 off the bench from Victor Lado with Ty Griggs and Quentin Wright doing the majority of the team's damage from three point range to both produce 17 point apiece as Wright went a perfect 5-for-5 and Griggs went 3-for-5 then Demin Johnson added 16 points off the bench on 7-of-10 (70%) shooting from the field and a 2-for-2 day from deep.

Clarke men's basketball will finish their 2025-26 season on the road for back-to-back games starting with a Wednesday night rematch with Mount Mercy University for a scheduled 7:30 p.m. CT opening tip in Cedar Rapids, Iowa on Feb. 18.