Offensive woes hinder Pride in home finale loss to Park

DUBUQUE, Iowa - Closing out their home slate for the 2024-25 season, the Clarke University men's basketball team lost by an 80-62 final score to Park University on Saturday afternoon.

Prior to the game, Clarke honored their lone senior this season in Jake Layman, who was unable to attend after undergoing a procedure on his knee earlier in the week, and gave a special shout out to fifth year senior Daquon Lewis as part of the basketball senior day festivities.

As for the game action, the Pirates went wire-to-wire with the lead, grabbing the first bucket of the game on an Abubakar Kromah layup on their second possession that would start a 10-2 run over the opening 3:35 that was capped off by a Kromah three pointer that forced a Pride timeout.

CU wouldn't get down by more than nine in the opening half and even cut the Park lead to a one-possession game at 27-24 with 7:35 remaining but that would be as close as the Pride would get for the remainder of the game.

Clarke's offense had a rough day from a shooting percentage perspective going 21-of-61 (34.4%) from the field, 7-for-26 (26.9%) from beyond three, and 13-of-24 (54.2%) from the free throw line as they had to play the second half without leading scorer DeMarco Clayton, who suffered an injury late in the first half, forcing him to be unable to return from that point on.

Kromah led all scorers with 21 points in the game while adding eight rebounds while Jasigha Barnes and Jaden Robinson both added double figures with 17 and 12 respectively for the Pirates to finish their shooting day at 30-of-71 (42.3%) from the field, 6-of-16 (37.5%) from three, and 14-of-18 (77.8%) from the free throw line.

Lewis finished his final game in the Kehl Center with 16 points on 5-of-9 (55.6%) shooting from the field as he was a rebound shy of a double-double while the Pride's leading scorer was Devon Junghans who had 18 points off the bench going 4-for-7 (57.1%) from three point range.

Clarke men's basketball will play their final three regular season games next week and all on the road starting with a make-up date against William Penn on Monday, Feb. 17 with a 7:30 p.m. CT scheduled tip in Oskaloosa, Iowa.