Erik Fisher (Maple Lake, Minn.) had another stellar day picking up 133 yards and a touchdown, as the Knights fell to an unbeaten Bethel College squad 41-14.
Fisher’s day pushed him to 843 yards on the season, which is the seventh best season total in Carleton football history. Fisher has also cracked the top ten in career rushing yards surpassing Steve Dickinson ‘62.
After falling behind 17-0, the Knights forced Bethel to punt. With good field position Carleton proceeded to drive all the way down to the Royals’ five-yard line. Two sacks and a short pass led to a missed 35-yard field goal attempt.
Luke Muellerleile (White Bear Lake, Minn./ Mahtomedi) intercepted a pass on the next drive to give Carleton new life, but an interception returned for a touchdown put Bethel up 24-0 at the half.
On the opening drive of the second half Carleton began to build some momentum when Tim Blaha (Northfield, Minn.) forced and recovered a fumble near midfield.
The Knights’ offense capitalized when Darren Caspers (Bemidji, Minn.) hit Ben Cooprider (DeKalb, Ill.) on a 31-yard touchdown pass.
After the defense came up with another stop, Carleton relied on their ground game running the ball on all six plays of their next drive highlighted by a 32 yard scamper by Wade Thompson (Peterson, Minn./ Rushford-Peterson) and the 5-yard touchdown run by Fisher.
The gap was closed to 27-14 at the end of third quarter, but Bethel would score on its first two drives in the fourth quarter to put the game out of reach.
Carleton picked up 223 yards on the ground with Thompson picking up 78 yards and Caspers adding 46 to Fisher’s performance.
Caspers also completed 8 of 16 passes for 75 yards.
On the defensive side of the ball Andrew Wild (Janesville, Wis./ Craig) tied for a game-high 12 tackles, which moved him past Neil Volker ’93 to eighth on Carleton’s all-time tackle list.
Randy Foss (Hastings, Minn.) also picked up 12 tackles including two tackles for losses. Muellerleile added ten tackles to go along with his interception.
The Knights head to Hamline University next week for a 7 pm game under the lights.