UAlbany Football Guaranteed A Share of North East Conference Championship With Big Win Against Robert Morris, 41-7

UAlbany Football Guaranteed A Share of North East Conference Championship With Big Win Against Robert Morris, 41-7. The Great Danes Are On Their Way To Its 2nd Straight Undefeated Conference Season, With One Game Remaining Against Wagner. This Marks 12 Consecutive Wins In NEC Competition. Also, Today's Win Guarantees UAlbany's Birth Into The GridIron Classic On December 6th Against The Pioneer League Champion. More to come...

Courtesy: UAlbany Athletics

Moon Township, Pa. -- Quarterback Vinny Esposito passed for one touchdown and ran for another in leading UAlbany to its sixth consecutive victory in a 41-7 triumph over Robert Morris on Saturday, Nov. 8 at Joe Walton Stadium. The Great Danes clinched a share of the Northeast Conference title and earned a berth in the Gridiron Classic on Dec. 6.

UAlbany (7-3, NEC 6-0) exploded for 17 third-quarter points to seal the outcome. David McCarty, who rushed for 129 yards on 25 carries, led his team to a field goal on the first possession of the second half. McCarty, a junior tailback, hauled in a18-yard screen pass to put his team in the red zone, before Herb Glass booted a 27-yard field goal for a 24-7 cushion.

Free safety Dave Casale picked off his second pass of the game and returned it 23 yards for a touchdown with 6:15 to play in the stanza. Robert Morris quarterback Erik Cwalinski, who connected on 12 of 27 attempts for 156 yards, had his pass tipped by cornerback L.B. McCloskey and Casale came up with the ball out of the air and raced untouched for the score. The Great Danes pushed out to a 38-7 lead late in the quarter with reverse tailback Justin Gannon cut back to his left on a 40-yard dash to the end zone.

“We came to play right from the start,” said Casale, who added seven tackles and led a defense that held the Colonials to 59 net rushing yards and recorded five sacks. “Each level (of the defense) played well. The defensive line got pressure, the linebackers took care of the run and defensive backs just had to worry about the pass. It’s great to reach a season-long goal (Gridiron Classic).".

UAlbany bolted to a 14-0 lead in the first quarter. After a 24-yard field goal was blocked on their first drive, the Great Danes struck for two touchdowns in a two-minute span. McCarty, who tied a single-season record with his ninth 100-yard rushing effort and matched a career standard with 17th game over the century mark, bounced around left end on a 26-yard scamper, using wide receiver Jason Poore’s downfield block en route to paydirt. He extended his touchdown streak to 18 consecutive games. Outside linebacker Emerson Kinsey then blocked a punt that set up Esposito’s 1-yard quarterback sneak with 2:39 left in the period.

The Colonials, who entering the contest with three wins in a row against league opponents, put together a 15-play, 80-yard march to slice the deficit in half. Karey Murray’s 1-yard run over the right side capped the sequence. Cwalinski, a 6-foot-3 senior, kept the drive alive with a 34-yard completion to Sherrod Evers in a third-and-15 situation from the UAlbany 37.

RMU’s defense stuffed UAlbany on fourth-and-goal from the six-inch line when Adam Lawrence and Andy Walton shut off Esposito’s sneak with 6:09 remaining in the second quarter. But UAlbany’s Casale halted that momentum with his first interception of the day. The Great Danes went 56 yards in four plays behind Esposito’s passing for a 21-7 advantage. He fired a 16-yard scoring pass to wideout Daniel Bocanegra, who caught his first career touchdown pass in the middle of the end zone with two seconds to play before the intermission.

“The defense shut down their pass game and we got to the quarterback early in the game,” said UAlbany coach Bob Ford, whose team will meet the Pioneer Football League champion in the Gridiron Classic for the second straight year. “It was a close game at the start, but the special teams blocked a punt and had a couple of good kickoff returns. That was a great read by Vinny (Esposito) on the touchdown before the half. Jason (Poore) was double-covered and he looked off the defense with the throw.”

Sophomore Myles Russ, the nation’s eighth-leading rusher, was held to 66 yards on the ground, as the Colonials fell to 4-6 overall and 3-3 in the conference. Esposito, who connected on 16-of-24 through the air, threw for 153 of his 201 yards in the first half. The Great Danes, who have won 12 straight against NEC opposition, rolled up 486 total yards, the second-highest figure of the season.