The Saint Anselm Hawks were at the bottom of the barrel once again to begin the season. After dropping its first five contests, a winning streak emerged that the school has not seen in roughly half a decade. Now they have landed back into reality with a 41-35 loss to the Bentley Falcons Saturday, who now are 4-2 in NE-10 conference matchups.
In the last quarter effort while trailing by 20, a two touchdown effort put the Hawks in close proximity to winning its fourth straight, but Bentley, who is now reciprocating with a three game winning streak of its own, held off a ditching effort and is now looking playoff bound.
Senior wideout Drew Mahoney (West Suffield, CT) led the Falcons with over 130 yards receiving and a pair of scores while junior Austin Ryan (Foxborough, Mass) had 118 yards of his own to help spread the field against Saint Anselm. The two combined for three scores on the day, while junior signal caller Stephen Strum (Collegeville, PA) aired out 340 yards to help get past the surging Hawks.
On the losing effort, senior dual threat Eric Fairweather (Londonderry, NH) threw for 200 yards and a touchdown, the lone TD reception went to senior wideout Shawn Donovan (Abington, Mass) while the Hawks had a combined 68 yards rushing on the day, an area of improvement that will be talked about leading into next week’s contest against AIU.
Defensively, the Hawks made life challenging for Strum, who chucked three interceptions additionally to his trio touchdown performance. Senior linebacker hybrid CJ Miller (Clinton, MD) filled up the stat boxes while making plays all over the field. Contributing 10 combined tackles, 0.5 sacks and 0.5 tackles for loss with an interception, Miller continues to be one of the backbones of this team. On the year including yesterday, Miller has now accounted for 78 tackles, eight sacks, two interceptions and three forced fumbles.
Next week, the Hawks (3-6) travel to their final away game of the season against American Int’l (3-5) who are coming off a close defeat to Pace and looking to get another win.
