NAPERVILLE, Ill. - The Carthage College Red Men lost their third game of the season on Saturday, falling at #9 North Central College, 43-20.

The loss drops the Red Men to 6-3 on the season and 4-3 in the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin, while the #9 Cardinals improve to 8-1 and 6-1 in the league.

"Obviously we didn't play well today and they took it to us," said a disappointed Mike Yeager following the loss.  "We didn't come out and perform well today… North Central is really good.  They beat us up, but we have to play better than that in all three phases."

The Red Men were never able to recover from an early deficit as the Cardinals went up 14-0 in the first quarter and 20-0 in the opening minutes of the second quarter.  Trailing by three scores, Shawntrel Garner returned a kickoff 98 yards for what would have been a touchdown, but a Carthage holding penalty brought it back and took points off the board for the Red Men.  North Central eventually extended their lead to 30-0 at the half.

The Red Men opened the scoring in the second half following a Connor Calvert interception deep in Red Men territory.  The Red Men put together a six play, 69-yard drive that was capped off by Jamel Davis a six-yard touchdown run over the left side block of Isaiah Trussell to cut the deficit to 30-7.  The biggest play of the drive came from the arm of Bobby Suchecki, who replaced starting quarterback Kyle Friberg in the first quarter, as Suchecki found Jovone Stricker for a 42-yard pass completion to set the Red Men up in the red zone.

On Stricker's play, Yeager stated, "Jovone is a competitor and does a great job.  He played really hard today and continued to make plays for us in all four quarters."

Suchecki finished the game 13-of-31 for 276 yards, with two touchdowns and two interceptions to lead the Red Men passing, while Jovone Stricker had six catches for a career-high 146 yards.   Jamel Davis carried the ball 14 times for 57 yards and the only touchdown of the day on the ground for the Red Men.

Calvert nearly had his second pick of the game for the second week in a row but a roughing the passer penalty took away the interception and allowed the Cardinals to push their lead back up to 30 at 37-7.  Algon side Calvert, Garner led the Red Men with 10 total tackles including six solo and two for a loss.

Trailing 43-7 in the fourth, Suchecki dumped off a screen pass to Manny Jones who followed his blockers down the North Central sideline and into the end zone for a 43-yard touchdown play.  Jones finished with three catches for 76 yards and the one touchdown.

Suchecki added his second touchdown pass of the game with 2:24 remaining in the game, finding Kyle French, who went over a Cardinal defensive back,  for a 32-yard touchdown reception to finish the scoring at 43-20.

North Central senior running back Austin Bruenig had historic game for the Cardinals, rushing for 264 yards on 26 carries and three touchdowns and catching two passes for 77 yards and two touchdowns.

Carthage will return to Art Keller Field next Saturday as they closeout the regular season with North Park University on Senior Day at 1:00 p.m.  Prior to the game, the Red Men will honor their 18 seniors that are part of the Carthage College Class of 2018.

Looking ahead to next week the head coach said, "We have no choice moving forward; we need to bounce back.  We get to do this for one more week and need to play well.  The seniors have done a nice job for us and we have to send them out the right way… Anytime you can win football games it helps the program, so obviously we need to finish it off this week."