The St. Thomas football team finished its regular season 10-0 for the second year in a row, a feat no MIAC team has pulled off since 1962: the same year the Second Vatican Council began and the Rolling Stones made their debut.

Relying on a relentless ground attack, St. Thomas routed the Carleton Knights 56-0. The Tommies outrushed the Knights 386 to nine.

The defense held the Knights to four first downs and recorded its third shutout of the season. Sophomore defensive lineman Riley Dombek had a huge game and said the team had something to prove today coming off a weak performance against Gustavus.

“I’d say we played with a little bit of an edge this week because we were disappointed with how we played against Gustavus last week,” Dombek said. “We wanted to make a statement this week.”

Thanks to 30 penalty yards on St. Thomas’s opening drive, the Knights had forced powerful Tommies to settle for a Tim Albright field goal attempt, but senior holder Ricky Margarit took the snap and dashed untouched into the end zone. The Tommies used Margarit to fake the extra point too, and instead of holding the Tommies to a field goal the Knights found themselves down 8-0 with 10:39 left in the first quarter.

A Dombek sack knocked Carleton’s starting quarterback Danny Shields out of the game and forced the Knights to punt to senior wide receiver Fritz Waldvogel at midfield. Dombek had two sacks and a fumble recovery.

“They were on two really good blitz calls by our defensive coordinator (Wallie Kuchinski),” Dombek said. “They blocked me a little bit and then kind of came off me and the quarterback rolled out my way, and I was able to tackle him.”

Waldvogel caught the punt in traffic, broke through the first wave of defenders and weaved downfield for a 52-yard punt return touchdown. It was Waldvogel’s first return touchdown of the season and his ninth as a Tommie. Coach Glenn Caruso said seeing Waldvogel get a return touchdown “felt like home.”

“Its been awhile,” Waldvogel said. “So it felt really good.”

Carleton’s offense struggled without Shields and did no better with backup quarterback Mike Hartwell. Although the Knights’ offense was able to move the chains in the second half, it never found the end zone. Hartwell completed eight of 24 passes for 76 yards.

The Tommie offense continued its success stringing together an 11-play, 60-yard drive that ended with a 14-yard touchdown pass from senior Dakota Tracy to tight end Logan Marks to put the Tommies ahead 21-0 early in the second quarter.

St. Thomas followed up its 11-play drive with a quick one. Colin Tobin’s 59-yard touchdown run on the drive’s second play gave the Tommies a 28-0 lead. Tobin finished the first half with 149 rushing yards.

With backup freshman quarterback Matt O’Connell under center, backup freshman running back Aaron Terrell-Byrd did his best Tobin impression, beating the Knight defense on a 44-yard touchdown that put the Tommies ahead 35-0. O’Connell added a 14-yard rushing touchdown 2:14 later giving the Tommies a 42-0 lead.

The Tommie offense was back on the field with a chance to equal their 49 point first half total against St. John’s, but the Knights recovered an O’Connell fumble, and the first half ended with the Tommies up 42-0.

Freshmen take over in second half

After the Tommies exploded for 27 points in the second quarter, they went scoreless for most of the third.

The Tommie offense featured freshman O’Connell and Terrell-Byrd and sophomore Kyle Whitley in the second half. Terrell-Byrd’s acrobatic rushing touchdown gave St. Thomas its first score of the second half with 2:33 left in the third quarter.

“I almost lost my footing, but I was able to put my hand down to stay up and get into the end zone,” Terrell-Byrd said.

Terrell-Byrd got his third rushing touchdown of the game on the next drive, beating the Carleton defense to the edge and reaching the ball to the pylon for a five-yard score.

“ATB (Aaron Terrell-Byrd) had a great week of practice, and we felt very comfortable that this was his style of game running between the tackles,” Caruso said. “Not only is he a tough runner, but let’s be completely honest; he is really tough to see in there being only 5’4’’.”

Second and third stringers stood their ground in the fourth quarter and preserved the shutout for St. Thomas.

“I was really happy we were able to maintain the shutout because we played the second half with our twos and threes,” Caruso said.

After 10 straight Saturday’s of football, Caruso and the Tommies are more than ready for a bye next week.

“We’re going to try to get away from each other a little bit next weekend,” Caruso said. “Just an opportunity to clear our minds and recharge our batteries.”

With the win over Carleton, the Tommies secured sole possession of the MIAC championship, but they’ll have to wait to find out who they’ll face in the first round of the playoffs.

Alex Keil can be reached at amkeil@stthomas.edu.