After a bye week, the Kenyon football team returned to McBride Field on Sunday for a game against Wabash College, falling 67-18. The Owls now have a 1-6 record (1-4 NCAC) on the season.
The Owls started off on the back foot, as the Little Giants scored two touchdowns and closed out the first quarter 12-0. Wabash carried its momentum into the second quarter, adding on four more touchdowns to bring its total to 40 points. Kenyon finally managed to end Wabash’s point streak with just 25 seconds left in the first half, as Henry Wendorf ’27 threw a 15-yard touchdown pass to Charlie Taylor ’27, bringing the halftime score to 40-6.
Wabash continued its offensive onslaught out of the gate, tacking on two touchdowns and a field goal before Wendorf found Dylan Carlquist ’26 in the endzone with 38 seconds left in the third quarter, bringing the score to 57-12. In an email to the Collegian, Carlquist, who leads the team in receiving touchdowns with three, talked about his drive for improvement. “My personal goal is to strive for excellence at my position in order to help our team win in any way I can,” he said. “We are proud of the progress we have made this year and hope to continue the trend into next year.” The Owls and Little Giants traded scores for the rest of the game, as Jordon Benjamin ’26 scored his sixth touchdown of the season on a six-yard run to cap off a 75-yard drive in the fourth quarter.
Despite the loss, Kenyon showed strong growth in many areas. Wendorf had a season high performance against Wabash with two touchdowns and 190 passing yards, while Jaylen Cardoso ’24, Dominic Simpson ’27 and Jared Hancock ’26 led the defense with nine tackles each. Cardoso, who alongside Kenyon’s other seniors has three games left in his collegiate career, is proud of the team’s journey this year. “As a team with a large sum of underclassmen, the start of the season was a shaky one. We understandably struggled with a lack of cohesion and experience but have come a long way since then,” he wrote in an email to the Collegian. “I think this season, though it hasn’t gone in the way anybody has hoped, has provided examples of what we excel at and where we can improve not only this season but in the years to come.”
Next week, Kenyon will head west to Greencastle, Indiana, where the Owls will take on the DePauw University Tigers. Cardoso is hopeful that the best is yet to come in these upcoming final weeks: “At this point in the season we are very developed in terms of our playbooks and comprehension of the game, and now if we can individually play to the best of our ability, it’ll come together like a puzzle and authentically represent what Kenyon football is this year.”