Wildcats Win Fourth Straight, Cruise to Road Victory over Spartans, 41-17

ST. LOUIS – (RV) Baker football posted over 500 yards of total offense and had its ball-hawking defense bag five interceptions as the Wildcats defeated Heart South opponent Missouri Baptist, 41-17 on Saturday afternoon in St. Louis to earn their fourth straight victory.

Rashaan Graves ran for a season-high 174 yards, while quarterback Truman Juelsgaard (296) threw for nearly 300 yards to lead a Wildcats offense that finished with a total of 512 yards.

Baker's opportunistic defense continued to terrorize opposing offenses as the Wildcats forced five interceptions, while holding Spartans quarterback Cooper Brown to just 13 completions in the game.

Juelsgaard and the Wildcats offense took the opening drive and carved out a 12-play attack that finished Graves scoring from 12-yards out to give Baker the early 7-0 lead.

After the Spartans tied things up before the end of the first quarter, BU scored on the first play of the second quarter with DeAndre Pruett Jr. hauling in a pass and taking it 49 yards to the house to put Baker back on top, 14-7.

The two teams would then exchange field goals with Seth Simpson's 29-yard attempt making it 17-10 in favor of BU.

With just over three minutes until halftime, Graves took the first play of a Baker drive and busted it 72 yards for his second touchdown of the opening half, giving the Wildcats a 14-point cushion at halftime.

Following the intermission, defense highlighted the third quarter for both sides as the only scoring of the period came on Simpson's second field goal of the day.

Missouri Baptist broke its scoring drought early in the fourth quarter on a touchdown pass by Brown, cutting the Spartans' deficit to 27-17.

Baker's defense, along with the offense's ground game, took control from there as the Wildcats forced a couple of punts and intercepted two passes to keep the Spartans at 17 points.

Meanwhile, Gabe Martin and Kirby Grigsby each added rushing touchdowns down the stretch to give the Wildcats a total of four rushing touchdowns in the game with Grigsby's capping off the conference victory for BU at 41-17.

Coming off of Heart Defensive Player of the Week honors, junior linebacker Canon Karn recorded two of the interceptions for BU to give the Holton, Kan. native a team-high five interceptions on the year. Jaleel Laffitte, Deshon Lewis II and Jalen Nash each picked off a pass as well with Nash getting his first interception of the season.

Pruett and Gavin Greenwood were the top targets for Juelsgaard with Pruett going for 124 yards on nine catches and a touchdown, while Greenwood had a game-high 11 catches for 92 yards.

Winners of four straight, the Wildcats will return to Liston Stadium for a big conference showdown with No. 18 Benedictine on Oct. 28 with kickoff set for 1 p.m. in Baldwin City.

#BakerBuildsChampions