Game Leaders
Team Stats
Passing Yards
Rushing Yards
Turnovers
Time of Poss.
Recap
Junior Jake Wood returned a pair of kickoffs for touchdowns in Nichols College's 25-14 season-opening defeat at Westfield State in non-conference football action Friday night at Alumni Field.
Wood's first return – an 84-yarder late in the second quarter – got the Bison (0-1) on the board and sent them into halftime down by five (12-7). His second return just seconds into the fourth quarter was a 90-yard scamper and made it a 25-14 game. He finished the night with 174 total return yards.
Sophomore RJ Darby rushed for a game-high 207 yards and a pair of touchdowns (5, 68) as the Owls (1-0) racked up 421 yards of total offense. Junior Jake Cassidy capped a 10-play, 75-yard drive in the third with a 30-yard TD pass to freshman Justin McCray on fourth-and-24 that gave them a 19-7 advantage. The TD was the only scoring drive of the stanza.
In the fourth, junior Shaquille Adjei scampered in from five-yards out just 25 seconds in to extend the Owls lead to 25-7. Wood's second kickoff return 14 seconds later capped the scoring.
Three things you need to know...
-Making his first start for Nichols, junior signal caller Michael Pina completed 7-of-18 passes for 74 yards.
-Junior Christopher Lawrence was the leading tackler for the Bison with 13, followed by junior captain Michael Spraulding with 11.
-Wood's 90-yard kick return for a touchdown was the fourth-longest in program history, tying him with Lawrence Scott, who returned a kickoff 90 yards for a score against Curry on November 1, 2008. Additionally, the two kick return scores are the most in one season program history.
Quotes
"Winning the opener is always going to be a team goal of ours, but one game doesn't make a season. We will be up and after it again tomorrow morning with a light lift and film session. We have a lot of new faces on this team with college experience, and we saw one of those players dominate the special teams unit tonight. Jake Wood had one of the best special teams performances I've ever seen. Two kickoff returns that resulted in touchdowns in the same game is basically unheard of." - Nichols head coach Dale Olmsted.
Next game
Friday, September 7 vs Anna Maria, 7:00 p.m.