Dukes topple Wagner Seahawks 37-21

The Wagner Seahawks took a touchdown lead on the Dukes in just four plays at Rooney Field Saturday. The veterans on the red and blue defense made sure it wouldn't come that easily again in the Dukes' 37-21 win.

"We didn't even need the coaches. We pretty much all got on ourselves," said Ashton Burno, who had seven tackles and half of a sack. "We're a veteran defense. We're all pretty much juniors and seniors and redshirt seniors, and we looked at ourselves and said ‘we've got to get it together.' And we did."

Following the 18-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Nick Dosher to running back Dominique Williams, the defense shut down the Seahawks for nearly 40 minutes. Sean Patterson and the offense returned the favor by scoring 31 unanswered points. The redshirt junior had one of his best games of the season completing 25 of 35 passes for 264 yards. Larry McCoy rounded out the offensive attack with 149 yards rushing, topping 1,000 yards for the season. Coach Jerry Schmitt knows his offense's success comes from its balance.

"We'd love to be able to [run and pass] equally well, because then teams can't scheme up defensively to stop one or the other," Schmitt said. "But we can never predict how a team's going to play us. That's our goal. We just want to score points, and if you can do both, then you're going to have a better chance."

Duquesne's touchdown machine, Connor Dixon, evened it at 7-7 with a 4-yard touchdown catch and then put the Dukes up for good after catching a Patterson pass at the Wagner 20-yard-line and taking it the rest of the way for a 37-yard score. Eleven of Dixon's 28 catches this season have gone for six.

Before the half, Charlie Leventry booted a school record 51-yard field goal, putting the Dukes up 17-7.

The Dukes continued their offensive domination in the second half as Patterson shredded a porous defense and took advantage of his receivers' speed and size.

"[Coach] made a big emphasis about sticking our routes, running good routes," said Issac Spragg who had nine catches for 95 yards.  "We were kind of getting away from it. We know we have a good receiving corps, but we got back to the basics, the little things. The way they were playing, I feel like our coaching staff did a great job of calling plays where we could get into space."

McCoy did the heavy lifting on the scoring end with three second-half touchdowns of 3, 29 and 1 yard. It was his second multi-touchdown game of 2011 and his sixth 100-yard game.

The Dukes defense held their opponent to three touchdowns or less for the fifth time this season, and they won their fourth straight home game and sixth straight dating to last season.

Senior defensive lineman Mike Passodelis said the team didn't expect the quick first score, but the defense rallied together to forget about it and move on.

"A couple of the other games, someone scores and everybody starts barking and butting heads. But we stuck together as a family, one unit, and we came back and were able to finish the game strong," Passodelis said.

The Dukes were most impressive when they were able to contain of the flashy Williams, who entered the game averaging 111.8 yards per game.

"They used our speed to rally to the ball," Schmitt said. "They contained Williams. That kid's really talented. If he gets out of the gate, he's going for big chunk yards."

Williams finished with 81 yards on 20 carries, and the Dukes' pressured Dosher to complete less than 50 percent of his passes. The Seahawks scored two touchdowns with the game out of reach on a 1-yard run from Dosher and a 62-yard pass to Wandy Saintilien.

The Dukes will face Monmouth on the road next weekend followed by a game at Sacred Heart on Nov. 12 before returning home for their season finale versus Robert Morris on Nov. 19.