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EWING – The College of New Jersey’s football team continued its winless streak to begin the season. On Saturday afternoon, the team lost to 5th-ranked Wesley Wolverines, 45-14, at Lions Stadium.
The Lions dropped to 0-4 on the season, while the Dover, Delaware powerhouse football program improved to 5-0.
TCNJ played its first game in three weeks, and early on, it showed that it had a chance to compete with the nationally ranked team. Following a bye and a canceled game vs. the Salisbury Seagulls last weekend, the Lions jumped out on the Wolverines early.
But after that early good start, Wesley dominated the game, scoring 28 straight points to end the first half. An an additional 10 points in the second half.
“We practiced every day and we didn’t sit around and eat bon-bons,” Lions head coach Wayne Dickens said. “We were able to come out and execute and early on, we executed sharply. Then, the bug-a-boos started to come along – with us making a mistake, or us getting a huge penalty at the wrong time – when you’re playing teams that are ranked in the D3 rankings in the nation, you can’t make those errors. It’s too hard to overcome it.”
Jamar Baynard scored Wesley’s second half touchdown, while kicker Eric Speidel connected on a 25-yard field goal in the fourth quarter.
Early in the third quarter, the Lions defense came up huge with a goal line stop. After the Wolverines got the ball to the one-yard line, quarterback Joe Callahan was stopped on three consecutive plays.
That gave the Lions offense the momentum. However, they couldn’t do anything with it and the game continued to slip away.
“That was a huge stop for our defense,” senior linebacker Zack Vasilenko said. “That set the momentum for the entire second half. I wish we would have done it sooner, but I won’t say much more than that. It was a great stop.”
Callahan went 22-of-30 for 367 yards and three touchdowns. All three touchdowns were on consecutive drives as Kyle George caught a 24-yard touchdown, then Bryce Shade added a 13-yard TD, before Alex Kemp had a 26-yard score to end the first half.
Baynard, who had 20 rushes for 115-yards, had a two-yard rushing TD to tie the game at 14. Callahan scored on a 12-yard run to tie the game at 7 early on.
Just seconds into the second quarter, the Lions took a 14-7 lead on the visitors as sophomore signal caller Trevor Osler hit Nick Craig for a huge 40-yard touchdown.
“That’s a play we rep every day in practice,” Dickens added. “It’s a play that we have ready and we practice from a consistent landmark on the field. We line up and we rep it. We were able to execute it when we needed it. We bought time with a play-fake and we had enough time and the ball was thrown where it was needed to be. It paid off for us.”
After that touchdown, things began to fall apart, as the Wolverines ran up the score until the time expired.
A few minutes into the game, the Lions also had a 7-0 lead when junior quarterback Michael Marchesano hit Max Boersteol for a 38-yard touchdown down the middle of the field.
“We started the game like we practiced,” Dickens said. “We knew there were some opportunities and we were able to take advantage of them early. That set them up on their heels a bit and we had a chance. But the same old bug-a-boo comes back to get us in the end. When we were playing mistake-free football, it was an interesting game.”
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