Moravian Heads to King's College on September 4 to Kickoff 2021 Season
BETHLEHEM, Pa. --- The Moravian University football team travels to King's College on Saturday, September 4 for a non-conference game to begin the 2021 season. Kickoff is slated for 12:00 p.m. at McCarthy Stadium in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.
BETHLEHEM, Pa. --- The Moravian University football team travels to King's College on Saturday, September 4 for a non-conference game to begin the 2021 season. Kickoff is slated for 12:00 p.m. at McCarthy Stadium in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.
THE COACHES: Jeff Pukszyn (Moravian '97) is entering his 11th season as Moravian's head coach after ten years as an assistant coach with the program. Pukszyn joined the Moravian staff as a part-time coach in 1997 after a three-year playing career that saw him named to the All-Middle Atlantic Conference First Team in 1994 and 1996. He was also a two-time captain. Pukszyn became part of the coaching staff full-time in 1999 as defensive coordinator and added the titles of assistant head coach in 2001 and special teams coordinator in 2007. In 2015, Pukszyn led the Greyhounds to an 8-3 record and a berth in the inaugural Centennial-MAC Bowl Series while being named both the Centennial Conference and American Football Coaches Association Division III Region 2 Coach of the Year. He has been a part of 265 games for Moravian since 1994 with a 127-137-1 record.
King's coach Jeff Knarr (East Stroudsburg '94) has a record of 37-64 at the school and is entering his 12th year.
NEW MORAVIAN STAFF: Moravian Head Coach Jeff Pukszyn has added to his coaching staff this season with Anthony Brinkley, Scot Dapp, Sal DeWalt, Mason Kholi and Michael McClarin joining the Hounds on the sidelines. Brinkley will coach the running back while Dapp, the winningest' Head Coach in Moravian history, returns to work the specialists. DeWalt also returns to the Greyhounds to coach the tight ends after serving as Head Coach at NCAA Division II Alderson Broaddus College. Kholi joins the staff as the wide receivers coach while former Greyhound McClarin will coach the linebackers.
THE SERIES: Saturday's meeting will be the 19th between the schools with the series tied at 9-9 after Monarchs' won 23-20 in 2019 when the schools last met inWilkes-Barre. The Greyhounds earned a 24-0 win back in 2018 at Rocco Calvo Field while King's posted a 30-27 victory in August 2017. The Greyhounds won the 2016 season opener 50-35, in Bethlehem, and the Hounds scored a last minute 21-17 victory in 2015. Moravian earned a 33-14 victory to kickoff the 2014 season at Rocco Calvo Field. The two schools previous meeting was in 2006 in Moravian's final year as a member of the Middle Atlantic Conference with the Monarchs posting a 28-23 win at Rocco Calvo Field on September 16, 2006.
GREYHOUNDS IN THE CENTENNIAL CONFERENCE: Moravian joined the Centennial Conference as an associate member in the sport of football in 2007. The Greyhounds were selected seventh in the Centennial Conference preseason coaches and sports information directors poll.
BALANCED & EXPERIENCED 'HOUNDS: Of the 84 players on the Moravian roster, 21 are freshmen, 14 are sophomores and 18 are juniors. There are 32 seniors including two fifth-year players on this season's squad, and the Greyhounds return 43 letterwinners and eight starters from 2019.
| Interviews with Head Coach Jeff Pukszyn and seniors Ryan Kennedy, Christopher Mills and Romello Walters. |
THE QUARTERBACKS: Senior Christopher Mills returns as the Greyhounds' starter, and he has completed 248-of-427 passes for 3,138 yards with 25 touchdowns and 11 interceptions in his career over 16 games. Junior Nick Reardon will be the back-up on the two-deep to start the season for the Greyhounds.
IN THE BACKFIELD: The Greyhounds will look to senior Carrington Smith, who has 61 yards on 28 carries in his career.
THE WIDE RECEIVERS: The Greyhounds have a strong core of returning wide receivers led by senior Nick Petros, who caught 51 passes for 586 yards and three touchdowns in 2019 and has 120 receptions for 1,789 yards and 17 touchdowns in his career. Senior Cory Little has caught 26 passes for 294 yards and a touchdown for the Greyhounds while senior Trevor Cunningham has one catch for 11 yards in his career.
OFFENSIVE LINE: Moravian has one returner on the offensive line in senior Frank Sallusti at right guard. The Greyhounds will add four other seniors to the starting offensive line with Jaequan Swint at left tackle, Jack Fineanganofo at left guard, Ryan Kennedy at center and Craig Krug at right tackle. The Greyhounds' front five has an average size of 6-1, 275.
DEFENSIVE FRONT: Senior Brady Hornbaker will anchor the Moravian defensive line as a returning starter. Hornbaker has recorded 110 tackles in his career with five sacks and 21 tackles for loss. Joining him on the front line will be senior Collin Frost and junior Javier Espinal-Katz.
THE LINEBACKER CORPS: The Greyhounds return two starters at linebacker led by seniors Nicholas Azpeitia and Noah Breidinger with Breidinger contributing 99 career stops and Azpeitia making 33 tackles in his career. The other scheduled starting linebackers are senior Francis Legreca and sophomore Colin Conway.
THE DEFENSIVE BACKFIELD: Moravian returns two starters in the defensive backfield with senior Romello Walters and senior Justin McRae. McRae has contributed 98 career stops with two interceptions and 11 passes defended while Walters has 18 career tackles and an interception return 79 yards for a touchdown. Also starting this season will be senior Connor Lyon, who has 24 career tackles, two interceptions and six passes defended, and freshman Chad Newhard.
KICKING GAME: Junior Trevor Yacuboski returns as the place kicker for the Greyhounds, and he is 3-for-4 on field goals with a long of 42 yards, and he as kicked off 19 times for an average of 53.0 yards and a pair of touchbacks. Senior Nick Petros will handle the punting duties again this year after averaging 37.7 yards on 41 punts in 2019 with a long of 65 yards, three touchbacks and nine inside the 20-yard line.
SPECIAL TEAMS: Wide receiver Cory Little and defensive back Justin McCrae are set to return kickoffs this fall for the Hounds while defensive back Connor Lyon and running back Carrington Smith are the Greyhounds' punt returners. Little has 33 career kickoff returns for 808 yards while Lyon has four career punt returns for 19 yards. Senior RJ Guffy will handle the long snapping duties.
MILESTONE WATCH: The Greyhounds have two players closing in on milestones for their careers. Senior wide receiver Nick Petros is fifth in school history with 1,789 receiving yards, and he needs 211 yards to become the second wide receiver in school history with 2,000 career yards. Petros is tied for seventh in program history with 120 receptions and needs 40 to set the school record, and he is tied for second with 17 career touchdown receptions, just two shy of setting the school record. He is tied for sixth with a 35.8 career punting average on 137 punts (eighth all-time) for 4,909 yards (eighth in school history). Senior quarterback Christopher Mills enters the week needing 862 yards to become the seventh Greyhound to throw for 4,000 yards after becoming the ninth Hound to reach 3,000 passing yards with a career-best 341 yards versus Dickinson College on November 9, 2019. Mills is also eighth all-time with 248 completions, ninth with 427 pass attempts and eighth with 25 touchdown passes.
THE CENTENNIAL CONFERENCE STATISTICAL RANKINGS: Starting next week, the Centennial Conference will release weekly statistical rankings of the ten football playing schools.
OVERTIME 'HOUNDS: Moravian has played a total of 10 overtime games since the NCAA instituted the rule for the 1996 season and is 7-3 all-time in the extra-session. Five of those ten overtime games have been against Juniata College with the Greyhounds going 4-1 in those games. Moravian's contest in Huntingdon in 2008 marked the first time in the Greyhounds' have needed more than one overtime session in a game. The 2008 season also marked the third year that Moravian has played at least two overtimes games in one season, the other years were 1999 when the Greyhounds played three overtime games and 1997 when Moravian played two overtime contests.
SCOUTING KING'S COLLEGE: The Monarchs were picked sixth in the 2021 Middle Atlantic Conference Preseason poll.
THE LAST TIME THEY MET: In Wilke-Barre in 2019, Moravian rallied from an early 14-0 deficit to tie the game in the third quarter before falling at host King's College, 23-20, in non-conference action under the lights of McCarthy Stadium to the 2019 season. The Greyhounds had 298 yards of total offense and were led by quarterback Christopher Mills, who connected on 17-of-34 passes for 193 yards with two touchdowns and one interception, and he also ran for 10 yards on five carries. Wide receiver Eddie Olsen caught five passes for 82 yards and a touchdown while wide receiver Nick Petros also had five receptions for 42 yards while rushing once for seven yards and punting five times. Wideout Alex Pierce added three catches for 36 yards while wide receiver Andrew Lelie caught two passes for 24 yards and a touchdown. Running back Roberto Diez led the Hounds with 87 yards and a touchdown on 15 carries. Defensive back Renard Nicholson led Moravian with 13 tackles including one of the Hounds' four sacks in the game, and Nicholson also registered a pass break-up. Linebacker Noah Breidinger added 11 tackles with one for loss while linebacker Tanner Barr had nine tackles. Defensive back Jackson Buskirk, linebacker Austin Heisler, defensive lineman Shane Mastro and defensive lineman Brady Hornbaker all had six tackles with Heisler adding one and a half sack, Mastro and Hornbaker each recording half a sack and Buskirk making one tackle for loss. Linebacker Tim Valentine had an interception for the Blue and Grey on defense to go with three tackles while defensive back Justin McRae had five tackles and a pass break-up. Defensive back Connor Lyon contributed four tackles with a pass break-up while defensive lineman Mike O'Hagan had four stops. Linebacker Kyle Kooker added three tackles with one and a half for loss while defensive lineman PJ Weierbach had a half a sack among his two tackles in his first game on defense after starting on the offensive line last season. Trevor Yacuboski kicked off four times for an average of 58.5 yards and one touchback. Moravian received the opening kickoff but would punt after three plays. The Monarchs ran a flea flicker on their first play of the evening and scored on a 65-yard touchdown pass for a 7-0 lead just a minute into action. The Greyhounds moved into the red zone on their next possession but a sack of Mills on fourth down at the five-yard line ended the drive. King's answered with a 16-play, 88-yard drive to pull ahead 14-0 with 54 seconds left in the first quarter. After each team punted, the Hounds took over at the King's 40-yard line early in the second quarter. On a fourth and three play, Mills found Olsen for a 33-yard touchdown pass. Jack Coary followed with the extra-point to cut the Monarchs' lead to 14-7 with 9:47 before the intermission. King's was driving late in the half when Valentine intercepted a pass in the end zone to keep the Blue and Grey down just seven points at the break. The Monarchs had the ball first after halftime and moved into the red zone before a 35-yard field goal attempt missed wide to the left. Moravian drove down the field and moved into the red zone on a 23-yard pass from Mills to Olsen on another fourth down conversion. Two plays later, Mills found Lelie on a three-yard slant for the touchdown and Coary's extra-point knotted the score at 14-14 with 6:37 left in the third quarter. King's kicked a field goal just 1:33 into the final period to move back in front, 17-14. Mills was intercepted on Moravian's next play, and the Monarchs scored on a 53-yard run to start the ensuing drive to push the advantage to 23-14 with 13:01 remaining. The Greyhounds moved down on the next drive when Diez found the end zone on a one-yard run with 8:44 to go. Coary's extra-point was blocked to keep the deficit at three points, 23-20. Moravian's defense forced a three-and-out to get the ball back. However, the offense was unable to move the ball and would punt after three plays. The Monarchs drove down to the one-yard line before running out the clock to end the game.
