By Murray Gleffe
Correspondent
DE PERE—One week after not catching a ball, Sam Staehling made history by snagging his 38th career touchdown reception to lead the St. Norbert College football team to a 66-0 rout of Beloit College in a Midwest Conference North Division game at Donald J. Schneider Stadium Oct. 19.
Staehling’s 14-yard touchdown catch in the second quarter broke Mike Whitehouse’s record set in 1989.
“We paid attention to detail and handled the little things right today,” said St. Norbert head coach Dan McCarty. “Nate [Ihlenfeldt] got us going early with his vision. He sees the holes, understands schemes and is in line with how I’m calling the game. It was a great first drive, and it continued from there.”
Gage McClanahan passed for 66 yards with one touchdown, and Ihlenfeldt and Ben Kohl each had 95 yards rushing.
Staehling led all receivers with seven receptions for 83 yards.
Jeff Vasquez led the Green Knights defense with 12 total tackles, and Michael Lafayette and Desean Brown each added seven.
St. Norbert (3-2, 2-0 MWC) accumulated 495 yards of total offense, while Beloit mustered only 57.
The Green Knights took the opening drive and went 55 yards in five plays, using up only 2:03 on the game clock to take a 7-0 lead after Ihlenfeldt burst through for a 37-yard touchdown run.
After the Buccaneers (1-5, 1-1 MWC) first drive ended in a punt, St. Norbert quickly went down the field.
Kohl added a 7-yard touchdown run to put the Green Knights up 14-0 on Homecoming Saturday.
With 13:53 left in the second quarter, McClanahan lofted up a fade-and-go route to Staehling who made an acrobatic catch in the end zone to give him the record and put the Green Knights up 21-0.
Staehling added his second touchdown of the day a few minutes later, and the rout was on.
“I’m so happy for Sam right now,” McCarty said. “He buys into the coaching and puts his team first. It didn’t matter to him last week he didn’t have a catch.”
St. Norbert added two more rushing touchdowns before intermission to give them a convincing 42-0 lead at halftime.
With the Green Knights up 45-0 midway through the third quarter, Kendall Karcz stepped in front of Buccaneers receiver Juan Reyes and took the interception 30 yards the other way for a touchdown.
“I think our defense is really starting to come together,” added McCarty. “We knew it was going to take some time with us being a little younger with graduation last year. Each game you have seen improvement. I’ll have to watch the tape, but I thought we played extremely well all over the place.”
The Green Knights added two late touchdown runs by Charlie Hietpas and Matt Vanden Heuvel to provide the final margin.
Box score
Beloit College: 0, 0, 0, 0—0
St. Norbert College: 14, 28, 17, 7—66