Football captures share of KCAC title with blowout of Saint Mary on Senior Day
This brings Bethel to 9-1 while it awaits a possible playoff berth.
On Saturday, the Bethel football team ended its regular season with a win over Saint Mary, 51-21, on Senior Day. The win over the Spires clinched at least a share of the KCAC title for the Threshers. It’s the third year in a row that they’ve won the conference.
Prior to the game, 30 Threshers were recognized as part of the class of 2023 — the winningest class in the program’s history.
“I’m really happy to see [our third conference title],” head coach A.B. Stokes said. “[The players] committed themselves to come here and dedicated themselves to the institution and then recommitted to stay here with the cultural change and things like that. I’m just so happy for these guys and their consistency and their commitment to Bethel College.”
In the first quarter, both teams started their first possessions with unsuccessful drives. To finish off the first quarter, both teams would exchange unsuccessful field goal attempts, with the Thresher offense not being able to gain any momentum in the red zone.
At the beginning of the second quarter, senior Trey Palmer turned things around for Bethel with an interception that gave the Bethel offense the ball at the Saint Mary 35-yard line. Quarterback DJ Ciers found the momentum for them as he ran for an 18-yard touchdown to bring them up, 7-0.
“I was excited about [my last game in Thresher Stadium] coming into it and my team, we talked about it all week,” Palmer from Pearland, Tex. said. “We just were focusing on this one game and hopefully now we get to play another game. But I’m glad it ended the way it did out here in North Newton.”
On the next play, the special teams unit made a big play of their own, falling on a fumble from the Spire return unit. The Thresher offense couldn’t capitalize on this opportunity, though. Bethel would then be able to go up 9-0, as the Saint Mary offense got backed up by the Thresher defense and the Spire long snapper snapped the ball over the punter’s head and out of the back of the end zone for a safety.
“Our defense has great leadership on the player side as well as the coaching side with Coach [Daylon] Markham and Coach [Braden] Schultz,” Stokes said. “They do a great job of preparing and getting our guys ready for a lot of situations and they come out and execute every Saturday. This says that they’re coached really well and they play really hard and that’s all we ask for.”
The rest of the half turned into a defensive battle which ended with a Saint Mary pick-six with only four seconds left, bringing the score at halftime to 9-7.
Midway through the third quarter, senior Phillip Williams picked off a pass from the Spire quarterback, putting Bethel in position to extend its lead — and it did just that. Junior Kayden Christiansen punched it in from five yards out.
On the ensuing drive, Saint Mary would find the end zone for its first touchdown of the game, closing the Threshers’ lead to 23-13. Then, on the very next play, the Spires had a failed onside kick attempt on the kickoff resulting in senior Cody Baxter picking the ball up after four hops and running straight to the end zone, putting Bethel back up by 17, 30-13.
Saint Mary bounced back with a touchdown to bring the score to 30-21. Then, the Thresher offense kicked straight into gear with three touchdowns to end the game.
The first was a rushing touchdown from sophomore Scott Grider. The second was a 23-yard rush from fellow sophomore Kash McCray. The final touchdown of the game was from Brenden Sanders after a forced fumble return caused by Josh Seabolt, leaving Bethel with the 51-21 victory.
“I always thought our offense was getting better and better throughout the year,” Stokes said. “Today especially in the second half it proved that. We just need to settle in and get going a little bit quicker. [Having three different running backs score] just says that our offense will continue to do good things.”
With the win, the Threshers cap the regular season with a 9-1 record and await their fate with a potential playoff berth looming. The NAIA will announce postseason matchups on Nov. 13.