The No. 11-ranked St. Thomas football team leads the Wisconsin-Eau Claire Blugolds 15-3 at halftime Saturday at O’Shaughnessy Stadium.

The first quarter was mired with missed opportunities by both teams.

Quarterback Matt O’Connell fumbled a snap at the St. Thomas 30-yard line that Eau Claire recovered at the 27. The Blugolds advanced the ball to the 1, but the Tommie defense held firm at the goal line.

The Tommies stopped Eau Claire twice on running plays before forcing and recovering a fumble. However, the Tommies were unable to capitalize on the turnover and were forced to punt.

The Tommies got the ball right back on the following Eau Claire drive when defensive back Kyle Coyne intercepted Eau Claire quarterback Mark Munger’s pass and returned the ball to the Blugold 43-yard line.

The Tommies capitalized and scored the first points of the game with 3:18 remaining in the first quarter on a 5-yard touchdown run by running back Jack Kaiser and extra point by kicker Paul Graupner to make the score 7-0.

Kaiser added a 2-yard touchdown run at 7:03 of the second quarter. The Tommies opted to forgo the extra point when wide receiver Dan Ferrazzo took a direct snap and scampered into the end zone for a 2-point conversion to push the lead to 15-0.

The Blugolds broke the shutout at 2:57 on a field goal from kicker Parker LeMire to cut the score to 15-3 in favor of the Tommies.

Tom Pitzen can be reached at pitz2014@stthomas.edu.