BRIDGEWATER, Va. – The Bridgewater College football team earned a decisive, 58-10, victory against Southern Virginia at the Jopson Athletic Complex in the team's home opener on Saturday afternoon.
The Eagles (2-0) tally of 58 points is the most since a 58-21 victory against LaGrange on Sept. 23, 2006.
Malcolm Anderson led the quarterback group as he went 11-of-13 for 148 yards and three touchdowns, including a 40-yard touchdown heave to end the first half, and ran for 20 yards and a touchdown. Jaylen Wood went 9-of-13 for 59 yards and 22 yards on the ground.
Two running backs found the end zone for the Eagles as Kennedy Fauntleroy and Ronald Robinson Jr. each found paydirt in the win. Albert Mensah led the rushing group with 25 yards and also hauled in a TD pass.
Freddie Watkins hauled in a touchdown catch for his only reception of the day, while Derrick Jenkins grabbed four passed for 48 yards. Viante Tucker also had four catches as he scored once across 39 yards. Twelve players recorded receptions in the victory.
The big story of the game was, once again, the Bridgewater defense as the team finished the day with six takeaways, forcing the Knights' (0-2) quarterback to throw four picks. Aaron Moore, who saw his name on the D3football.com Team of the Week put forth another stellar performance finishing with seven tackles (six solo) with two interceptions, a touchdown and a fumble recovery. Aaron Nice and Noah Hines each totaled seven stops in the win, while Noah Robinson traveled 43 yards on an interception for a touchdown to go along with 1.0 sacks and 2.0 total TFLs. Zach Koller also snatched up an interception.
After a fourth-down conversion to end the first quarter, Fauntleroy started the scoring on a 13-yard touchdown run to put the Eagles up, 7-0, after a Jackson Hendren PAT. Less than five minutes later, Anderson evaded several would-be tacklers to find the end zone to push the lead to 14-0 with 10 minutes left in the first half.
SVU was able to manufacture a 15-play drive that only eclipsed 54 yards, but took eight minutes off the clock, to get points before the end of the half on a 40 yard field goal from Mike Brown. On the ensuing kickoff, Brendan Robinson went 88 yards to the house for a touchdown, 21-3.
The Knights struck again before half on a two-yard pass over the middle to Jalan Troy for a touchdown, 21-10. With just 15 seconds until the break, the Knights chose to kick off short, but B. Robinson almost took another kick all the way, but was taken down inside SVU territory with three seconds showing on the scoreboard. A three-step drop from Anderson led to a toss to the left side of the end zone that was hauled in by Watkins for a touchdown to set the score at 28-10 in favor of Bridgewater at halftime.
To start the second half, the Knights stalled out and were forced to punt as the Eagles methodically moved down field to eventually lead to a TD run by R. Robinson to push the lead to 35-10. Three plays later, Moore picked off a pass over the middle for a 20-yard pick six, his second interception returned for a touchdown in as many weeks, 42-10. Moore was not done, however, as a forced fumble from Hines was swallowed up by Moore deep inside visitor territory, which eventually led to an Anderson-to-Mensah touchdown, 49-10. Anderson added another touchdown pass, this time to Tucker from 12-yards out, to make the score 56-10.
While the offense was done scoring, the defense held the Knights to a three-and-out on the following drive, but a bad snap on a fourth-down punt attempt went into the back of the end zone for a safety, 58-10, which held until the final.
As a team, Bridgewater picked up 19 first downs compared to 18 from SVU, while the Knights collected 153 yards on the ground compared to 103 for the Eagles. BC won the battle through the air with 219 passing yards compared to just 154 from the visitors. The Knights held the ball for almost 12 more minutes than the Eagles.
The game also featured a pair of brothers each scoring touchdowns for the Eagles.
Bridgewater returns to action next week as it travels to N.C. Wesleyan to help the Battling Bishops open their new football stadium on Sept. 17, with kickoff scheduled for 12 pm.
Eagles Dominate Knights to Open Home Schedule
/seasons/2022/boxscores/20220910_towe.xml
2022
Southern Virginia
10
Bridgewater
58
| Final | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | T |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southern Virginia (0-2) | 0 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 10 |
| Bridgewater (2-0) | 0 | 28 | 21 | 9 | 58 |
Sep 10, 2022