The Stony Brook Seawolves football team wrapped up a disastrous road trip with a 42-0 loss to the Richmond Spiders, going 0-3 since the last home game. SB drops to 3-4 with the loss.

Throughout the first half, the game would be a stalemate, except when Richmond would have a strong moment. Richmond got on the board early with a punt return for a touchdown following the first drive of the game.

The teams exchanged punts until a strong Richmond drive in the middle of the second quarter. Richmond took the ball to midfield, and then had the ball advanced to the 38 on a facemask penalty. On the next play, running back Tim Hightower took the ball all the way to the end zone for the touchdown. He would have two touchdowns that day.

Richmond broke the game open in the third quarter, scoring a touchdown on all three drives. In the fourth, many of their starters came out of the game, but they still managed to put up another touchdown to make it 42-0.

In the last drive of the game, SB quarterback Josh Dudash was replaced by Dan Sweeney. The drive had great promise to break the shutout, but time ran out when they were on the Richmond one-yard line.

Statistically, SB’s offense was better, having possessed the ball 13 minutes longer, and gaining 14 more yards. Neither team had any turnovers. However, Richmond was much stronger on special teams, gaining an average of eight yards more on kickoffs. On punts, they averaged 28.2 yards (including the touchdown) to SB’s meager 2.3 yards/return. SB was forced to try to convert on fourth downs, and uncharacteristically failed on all three attempts. Richmond had two sacks.

The biggest weakness for SB on offense was, once again, dropped passes. For several weeks, their receivers have been unable to hold onto the ball. On defense, they continued to play strongly, except when they would give up a big play, like the 38-yard touchdown run.

SB will play 1-5 Maine at LaValle Stadium in their homecoming game on Saturday. Kickoff is at 3:00 PM.