Pride end season on a high note with 76-71 win at Culver-Stockton

CANTON, Mo. - Closing out their 2025-26 season with a road matchup against Culver-Stockton College, the Clarke University men's basketball team earned their first win in 10 games with a 76-71 victory on Saturday afternoon.

It was a strong first half that saw the Pride get up to an 11-point lead on multiple occasions in the opening 20 minutes at 28-17 and 31-20 to head into the halftime break leading 31-22 behind a defensive effort that held the home team to 8-of-32 (25%) shooting from the field and 10 turnovers.

Offensively for CU in the first half, everyone outside of one players hit at least one shot from the field and that other player in Jonovan Howard provided plenty of production in five rebounds and four assists in 12 minutes of action while Carson Lindauer and Desmond Jones had six points, Bryce Luster had five, Nick Bryant added four, Jordan DiBenedetto and Devon Junghans both his a three pointer, and Michael Kascel and Lovre Stanovic both had a two-point half.

Maintaining that near double digit lead through the early portions of the second half, Clarke had to fend off a comeback from the Wildcats as they would tie the score up at 50-50 right near the under 10 media timeout.

The Pride regained the lead coming out of that break but Culver-Stockton took their first lead since being up 5-3 within the first five minutes of the game at a 58-57 advantage with 4:45 left in the game, but with just under two minutes to go, Jones knocked down a jumper to break a 63-63 tie and Junghans made a three to give CU a five-point lead that they wouldn't relinquish over the final 1:18 of the game, with Junghans hitting six-straight layups when Clarke needed them.

Both Jones and Junghans, who came off th bench, finished as the top two scorers for Clarke in the game as Jones finished with a game-high 20 points and Junghans produced 15 while Howard overcame the scoreless first half to produce 11 in the second half as the final double digit scorer for CU in the game.

Closing out the 2025-26 campaign on a win, the Pride men's basketball team finished the season at a 5-23 overall record and two wins in Heart play with a large crop of seniors set to depart the team, including Junghans, Lindauer, Bryant, Luster, DiBenedetto, and Kascel.