Without running back King Njhsanni-Wilhite (collarbone) and wide receiver Zachary Jones (ankle), Riordan (3-2, 1-1) couldn’t do much better. The Crusaders only had four offensive plays of more than 10 yards to their name, two of which came on the opening drive. Michael Mitchell Jr.’s 29-yard completion to Zion Wells put the hosts in the red zone, but Bellarmine’s Christian Farias, the last line of defense, brought Wells down at the 15. A false start and two incompletions forced Riordan to attempt a 38-yard field goal, and Finnbarr never got a clean kick off after a botched hold.
The Bells held the ball for nearly 10 minutes in the second quarter, but had nothing to show for it. They gained just 37 yards on an 11-play drive that stalled out on a fumbled handoff and ultimately culminated in a punt, and facing third-and-goal at the Crusader 2 with 11 seconds left in the first half, Threatt was intercepted by Je’Mon Brown, who would have had an improbable 103-yard touchdown if not for a heroic chasedown tackle by junior guard Tom Reilly as time expired on the half.
Riordan was held to three first downs in the second half, all of which came in the third quarter. The Crusaders started their second drive of the half at Bellarmine’s 45 after the wind knocked down a Jack Raney punt, and a double reverse to Wells brought the hosts to Bellarmine’s 20, but they lost yards on the following three plays, including a botched snap on third down that took them out of field goal range.
After the Bellarmine field goal, Charlie Johnson got stuffed on fourth-and-1. The trio of Jacob Kleppin, Jordan McQueen and Sebastian Padilla teamed up to stuff the Bells on downs with 3:42 remaining, but Mitchell couldn’t lead a heroic game-winning drive. He was flushed out of the pocket on third down by Jae’Von Reels, and Reels batted down his pass at the line on fourth down with 2:15 to go and Riordan down to one timeout. Threatt picked up a first down on back-to-back runs, allowing the visitors to enter victory formation and secure their 21st consecutive head-to-head victory against Riordan.
Threatt finished the day with 89 rushing yards across 15 attempts, while Riley Paran ran 24 times for 84 yards after Pfaff went down. Bellarmine was also without top deep receiving threat Colin Lakkaraju.
Mitchell finished 13-of-21 passing for 83 yards, with 48 of those yards going to Wells, but the Crusaders averaged just 2.4 yards per rushing attempt without Wilhite.