Owls Football Opens Conference Play at Western Connecticut on Friday Night

DANBURY, Conn - Western Connecticut University hosts Westfield State University on Friday Night with kickoff at 7:00 pm

LAST YEAR: Western Connecticut got off to a hot start scoring 24 unanswered points. The 2nd half run from the Owls wasn't enough as Quarterback Colby Pires (Milford, Mass.) threw two touchdown passes, one of them to Dylan Disabella (Granby, Conn.). Tyler Gillis threw three touchdowns for Western Connecticut in their 34-20 win over the Owls.

LAST WEEK: The Owls fell to Western New England by a final score of 46-0. The Owls put themselves in a hole to start the game and did not have an answer for the Golden Bears high powered Offense. The Golden Bears provided five rushing touchdowns from five different rushers.

WESTFIELD STATE ON OFFENSE: Colby Pires completed 75 percent of his passes, with Corey Jackson (West Hartford, Conn.) hauling in 6 catches for 19 yards. Jordan Smith (Coventry, Conn.) rushed for 66 yards while averaging 3.9 yards per carry. Smith is averaging 94.5 yards a game on the year while averaging 4.7 yards per carry.

WESTFIELD STATE ON DEFENSE: Linebacker Tyler Cooley (Randolph, Mass./Archbishop Williams) who was named to the MASCAC honor roll this week had a game high 18 tackles and a forced fumble, with Senior Captain Cade Nelson  (Shrewsbury, Mass.) right behind him with 10 tackles. Defensive backs Christian Julian (Hingham, Mass.) and Marckus Allen-Nesmith (Glassboro, N.J.) added six tackles each from the secondary.

WESTFIELD STATE ON SPECIAL TEAMS: Adam Legere (Bedford, Mass.) was able to handle two bad snaps and punted two times with an average of 37 yards per punt. Curtis Dion returned four kicks for 85 yards bumping his season average up to 22.8 yards per return.

WEST CONN ON OFFENSE: In the Wolves first and only game, they fell to the United States Merchant Marine Academy in a high scoring affair with a final score of 52-35. Junior quarterback John Giller was 21-33 with 375 yards and four touchdowns and ran for 63 yards on 12 rushes. His favorite target Julian Ferguson hauled in nine catches for 132 yards and two touchdowns.

WEST CONN ON DEFENSE: The Wolves defense allowed 52 points last week allowing a total of 439 yards and five touchdowns rushing. DB Deshaun Hardy led in tackles for the Wolves with 10 tackles. Graduate Student Nosa Uzamere was in on 9 tackles, 2 TFL, and a sack.

LIVE COVERAGE:  The game will be streamed live on WestfieldStateOwls.com and on the MASCAC.tv channel, which is available on Roku and Apple TV devices.  Live stats are available on WestfieldStateOwls.com.

A LOOK AHEAD: Westfield State will continue conference play as they travel to Framingham state to take on the Rams on Saturday, Sept. 23 at 12:00 pm. Western Connecticut will travel to Bridgewater State to take on the Bears on Saturday, September 23 at 4:00 p.m.

-- written by Anthony Franco, sports information intern