No. 25 Baker Falls on the Road at Clarke

DUBUQUE, Iowa - After earning a top-25 win at Benedictine on Wednesday, No. 25 Baker men's soccer fell in its road match at Clarke, 7-2 on Saturday night to fall to 9-4 on the season.

The Pride scored five goals in the first half and added two more in the second, while Jacob Thomas recorded his first career brace for the Wildcats with a goal in each half.

With both teams repeating their first-half totals, Clarke held an 18-10 advantage in shots with 12 of them being sent towards goal. Reilly Marlow-Jones joined Thomas for the team lead for BU with three shots in the match.

Baker earned six corner kicks on the night and limited the Pride to one lone set piece in the first half.

Things looked to be going in the Wildcats' favor real fast with Thomas scoring his first goal just over two minutes after kickoff. Pressure from both Thomas and Marlow-Jones resulted in Thomas swiping the ball away from CU keeper on the edge of the box and quickly slipping the ball into an empty net to put BU on top, 1–0.

Appearing in his seventh match of the season, it was the first goal of 2024 for Thomas, who is in his first year at BU since transferring from Kansas City Kansas CC.

Clarke responded with a goal almost 10 minutes later to tie the match before rattling off three straight goals in a six-minute stretch to take a commanding, 4-1 lead. With Baker only having one PK drawn against them coming into the match, it was a couple of penalty kicks that bookended the scoring spurt for the Pride with one in the 23rd minute and another in the 29th.

The Pride scored in the final 25 seconds of the first half and then seven minutes into the restart to make it a 6-1 lead early in the second frame.

In the 67th minute, Thomas notched his second goal of the game after redirecting a strike by Akira Itadani that flicked off the boot of Thomas and into the back of the net. For Itadani, it was his fourth assist of the season with one in back-to-back matches now after setting up a goal against the Ravens on Wednesday.

Clarke tacked on its final goal in the 85th minute to close out its five-point victory.

With the regular-season finale less than a month away, the Wildcats head into a key stretch with three of their next four matches coming at home where BU is 6-1 on the year.

Baker will kick it off with a match against Mount Mercy on Saturday, Oct. 12 at 7:30 p.m. at Hartley Field.

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