Box Score

COLLEGEVILLE, Minn. – Most kids remember singing "The Skeleton Song" growing up.

You know the lyrics: "The foot bone's connected to the leg bone/The leg bone's connected to the knee bone."

Saint John's sophomore linebacker Aiden McMahon (Maple Grove, Minn.) seemed to echo that tune as he described the play of the Johnnie defense during Saturday afternoon's 34-0 MIAC Northwoods Division shutout victory over Gustavus at Clemens Stadium.

"We were able to get after the quarterback," said McMahon, who led the way with 11 tackles as the Johnnies - ranked as high as No. 3 nationally in the most recent D3football.com poll - improved to 5-0 in conference play (2-0 Northwoods Division) and 7-0 overall with a victory before a Family Weekend crowd of 11,514.

"That helps the linebackers. That helps the defensive backs. It lets you play more freely, more aggressively. You saw that today. Whenever they tried to pass, we had pressure. And if they managed to escape it, our defensive backs made big plays. That's just how good defense works."

It worked well enough Saturday to limit the Gusties to 126 yards of total offense and only nine first downs. SJU recorded six sacks and two hurries, making sure Gusties' freshman quarterback Jacob Ginskey never had a chance to settle in throughout the first half. He was replaced by senior George Sandven in the second half, but Gustavus (4-3, 3-2 MIAC, 1-1 Northwoods) still couldn't get on track offensively. 

That was quite a change from last season's matchup when the Gusties piled up 465 yards of offense en route to a 38-35 victory in St. Peter. The loss kept the Johnnies from a berth in the MIAC championship game and prevented them from extending their school-record streak of eight-straight Division III playoff appearances.



"If we're going to be a great defensive team, we can't give up big plays," SJU coach Gary Fasching '81 said. "I thought our guys did a great job with that today. They played their positions, and I thought they looked hungry out there. They looked like they were really intent on shutting them down."

Ginskey and Sandven combined to go 8 of 20 passing for 65 yards and an interception. Sixty of the 65 yards went to Jake Breitbach, the 2023 MIAC Offensive Player of the Year, on six catches. Gustavus' Caden Kleinschmidt, who was the reigning MIAC Offensive Player of the Week following his performance of seven receptions for 228 yards and three touchdowns in last week's 36-7 win at Macalester, was held without a catch.

SJU totaled 11 tackles for loss on the afternoon, including 3.5 from senior linebacker Hayden Sanders (Brooklyn Park, Minn./Champlin Park), who also forced a fumble.

The defensive dominance was especially important on an afternoon when it took the Johnnies' high-powered offense a little while to get going. SJU's first four possessions yielded three punts and a missed 34-yard field goal attempt.

Junior running Caden Wheeler (Andover, Minn.) was the lone bright spot, carrying the ball 10 times for 65 yards in the first half, including a 1-yard touchdown run late in the second quarter that put the Johnnies on top 7-0 at halftime. Wheeler, though, was carted from the field after suffering what appeared to be a serious ankle injury in the third quarter.



Before that happened, SJU extended its lead to 14-0 on a 76-yard touchdown pass from senior quarterback Aaron Syverson (Minnetonka, Minn.) to junior tight end Joey Gendreau (Shorewood, Minn./Minnetonka) - a play that seemed to open the offensive floodgates.

"The momentum shifted to us after that," Fasching said. "It felt like that kind of took the wind out of their sails a little bit."

Syverson - who finished 24 of 35 passing for 338 yards - connected with junior wideout Dylan Wheeler (St. Paul, Minn./Mounds View) on a 34-yard touchdown pass later in the third quarter. Wheeler led the Johnnies with six catches for 101 yards. Then - after a 1-yard touchdown run by senior running back Quinn Christoffersen (South St. Paul, Minn.) extended the lead to 27-0 - he found sophomore wide receiver Riley Schwellenbach (Woodbury, Minn./East Ridge) for a scoring strike of 13 yards to close out the scoring.

"It wasn't a great first half, but we were pretty confident that we'd get it figured out and start making plays," Syverson said. "We believe in ourselves. We know we're going to get it rolling at some point. It's just a matter of when."

Indeed, and as a result, SJU remains unbeaten heading into a matchup against St. Scholastica (2-5, 1-4 MIAC, 0-3 Northwoods) at 1 p.m. next Saturday (Nov. 2) in Duluth.

"This was a big game for us," McMahon said of Saturday's win. "We knew we had to get through these guys to get to the MIAC championship. That didn't happen last year, and we kept that game in the back of our minds. That feeling was the worst feeling in the world. We didn't want that again.

"We came out with a ton of energy and kept the snowball rolling the whole time."

Another Record for Syverson
Saturday's passing performance enabled Syverson to become SJU's all-time leader in pass completions with 841 – breaking Alex Kofoed's '07 record of 830 – and nudged him closer to a few more marks. He passed Kofoed (10,818) for second in SJU history with 11,003 yards of total offense and moved into a tie with Jackson Erdmann '19 for the program record of 15 300-yard passing games.

New PAT Leader
Senior kicker Conor Murphy's (Sioux Falls, S.D./O'Gorman) four PAT's enabled him to pass Brandon Keller '05 for the Johnnies' all-time record with 214. Murphy is also seventh in program history with 277 career points, two behind Keller in sixth, and fifth in made field goals with 21.

Shutout
The shutout, SJU's second of the season, was the 191st in program history, the 22nd in 125 games under Fasching and the first in its series with GAC since 2007 (40-0 on Oct. 13 in St. Peter).