The Central Connecticut State University Blue Devils defeated the Stony Brook Seawolves by a score of 35-32, despite a career day for Josh Dudash, last week’s SBU Athlete of the Week and NEC Offensive Player of the Week. The loss handed the title to the Monmouth Hawks, who won it by beating the Albany Great Danes, 19-0.
CCSU literally hit the ground running, charging up the field throughout the first half. They would gain a total of 380 yards on the ground, and had a 14-7 lead by the end of the first quarter. CCSU would score another touchdown late in the second. They then did an onside kick, which they recovered, and converted to a touchdown on the next play. Stony Brook struck back when Dudash found Steve Austin for another touchdown. However, a botched snap cost them the Point After Touchdown (PAT), and they went into the break 28-13.
Stony Brook came on strong in the second half, scoring a touchdown with a Dudash pass to Lynell Suggs to move them to 28-19, following another botched PAT. Stony Brook would live to regret the pair of bad PATs. CCSU scored another touchdown before the end of the third to make it 35-19. Stony Brook scored in the fourth on a pass to Dwayne Eley to make it 35-25, following an unsuccessful 2-point conversion. With just over 2 minutes to play, Dudash threw his fifth touchdown pass of the day, this time to Mike Cosentino, to make it 35-32. The ensuing onside kick would go out of bounds, and CCSU would run the clock out to end the game, and the season.
Throughout the game, both teams made aggressive calls. Stony Brook, at one point, decided to decline a penalty on CCSU’s offense to force 4th and 2, instead of pushing the team back to a third-and-out. CCSU went for it, as they did multiple times during the game, and eventually scored a touchdown. Stony Brook was also willing to attempt a fourth-down conversion, as they’ve been in other games this year.
Head Coach Chuck Priore said, ‘it wasn’t meant to be,’ on the loss of what would’ve been a second straight conference championship. Stony Brook finishes the season 5-2 in conference play, and 5-6 overall.
