White ignites offense for Pride in 11-5 win at Midland

FREMONT, Neb. - Facing their first NAIA opponent of the 2024 season, the Clarke University men's lacrosse team earned an 11-5 road win against Midland University on Saturday afternoon.

Coming off of their season-opening 9-0 win, the Pride were able to jump out to an early lead again against the Warriors on a Ryder Chaba goal less than five minutes on an assist from Doug Powless before CU would give up their first goal of the season exactly a minute later when MU's Preston Davis scored to even it up at 1-1.

That score would hold for a majority of the remainder of the first quarter before Justyse White and Aiden Gudenkauf got on the board in the final 1:35 of the period for their first goals of the season as Gudenkauf netted the team's third goal with three seconds remaining in the first.

White and Chaba would both tie for the game-high in goals, adding two more goals over the next three quarters as Clarke would win the second quarter 2-1 and the fourth quarter 4-1 after tying the third 2-2 to cruise to victory as White dished out a pair of assists to tie the game-high with Matt Archer at five points as Archer scored one goal and assisted on four others.

Powless and Henry La Belle would both score their first career goals with the Pride as Powless added two assists and took a team-high 10 shots, seven on net with Midland's goalie, Wyatt Dudziak, making six of his 12 saves on Powless alone.

Earning his second-straight win in net to start the season, Pride goalie Jack Fritz made 13 saves on 18 shots on target while the Warriors outshot Clarke in total in the match 35-32.

Clarke men's lacrosse will have a little time off from game action before hosting Northland College for a 4:00 p.m. CT start at Burrows Field on Thursday, Mar. 7.