DARTMOUTH, Mass. -Â Defense reigned supreme in the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth football team's 34-7 win over Westfield State on Blue & Gold Weekend Saturday night.
The Corsairs (6-1, 5-0 MASCAC) remain alone in first place in the conference standings, while the Owls (0-6, 0-3 MASCAC) are still in search of their first win of the season.
UMass Dartmouth's defense held Westfield to -5 rushing yards and 166 total yards on the day. junior
CJ Waite led the team with six tackles, including four solo and one for a loss, while 5th-year senior
Javien Delgado finished with five tackles and picked off his first-career interception. 5th-year senior
JP Mason, junior
Logan Chappell, sophomore
Sam Alicea and freshman
Kairis Codio each had four tackles. The UMass Dartmouth defense combined for four sacks with Codio, junior
Jackson Wellman and sophomore
Woodley Felix all bringing down the QB once, while 5th-year
Marcus Elysee and senior
Josh Lacerte got a sack together. Junior
Shane Meerbott added an interception.
Offensively, junior
Dante Aviles-Santos threw for 267 yards and two touchdowns. On the receiving end of those TD's were sophomore
Angel Sanchez, who finished with 152 yards and once score, and senior
Winston DeLeon, who had a 32-yard touchdown catch and run. Senior
Luis Gonzalez rushed for three scores and 66 yards, while junior
Richarno Hylton tallied 77 yards and touchdown.
It was a slow start for the offense as the Corsairs waited until 7:50 in the second quarter to get on the board. A 22-yard pass to junior
Isaiah Cole set up a screen pass from Aviles-Santos to DeLeon, who found space and ran 32 yards for the first TD of the night.
The score remained 7-0 until there was 9:27 on the clock in the third. A 24-yard rush by Aviles-Santos, 17 yards on the ground from sophomore
Jalyn Aponte, and 38 more yards in the air to Sanchez set up a 2-yard TD rush by Gonzalez to extend the lead to 14-0.
UMass Dartmouth struck again in the final minutes of the third when Hylton went for 45 yards on the ground down the sideline to push the advantage to 20-0.
A pair of passes for 34 yards to Sanchez eventually set up Gonzalez for his second touchdown rush of the night, this time a 2-yard score to make it 27-0 with 11:35 left in the game. Westfield State finally got on the board on a 20-yard pass, catch and flip into the endzone to cut its deficit to 27-7 with 9:00 to go.
The Corsairs were not done yet. Shortly after Delgado's interception, Gonzalez broke through for a 13-yard TD to seal the deal.
UMass Dartmouth is on the road next against Fitchburg State on Saturday at 12 p.m.
