Panther Football Suffers Shutout at Bridgewater State

The Plymouth State Panthers suffered their fifth loss of the season at Bridgewater State this past Sat., giving up 24 points, while being shutout in loss. The game, being Bridgewater’s homecoming, also snapped their three-game losing streak and improved their MASCAC conference record to 2-3. The loss gave PSU their fourth conference loss, dropping their overall record to 1-5.

“Our offense has been very inconsistent.  We had some drives going [against Bridgewater], but did not finish them, so that’s one of the key things to work on at practice this week,” Coach Paul Castonia said. The Panthers were limited to just 121 total yards of offense, with only 37 yards coming on the ground. RJ Kasper (Killingsworth, CT) had the majority of the yardage through the air, catching ten passes from Ryan Perron (North Attleboro, MA) for a total of 71 yards.

BSU racked up 455 yards of offense, with over 200 coming through air strikes. Quarterback Danny Higgins went 16-21 on completions for a total of 167 yards, and running back Alex McLaughlin broke 100 yard on the ground, with an average of over nine yards a carry.

Cristian Rivera capped off a 64 yard drive with a 5 yard run to open up scoring in the first quarter at the 3:52 mark. Kicker Colin Neri added to the scoring early on in the second with a career long 44 yard boot to give BSU a ten-point advantage going into the second half. BSU finished off the scoring with yet another long scoring drive, this one lasting over five minutes and capped by a 15 yard Alex McLaughlin run.

Although there was some big time offense from BSU, Plymouth safety Sam Bellamy (Keyport, N.J.) recorded nine tackles (eight solo). Senior DE Kyle Wilson (Dover, N.H.) helped out with five solo tackle, with two of them going for negative yards.

When talking about this week’s upcoming matchup against Framingham State, Coach Castonia said, “Framingham is the best team we will play all year. They have won the conference the past couple years.  Our defense is improving but had no help, so we’ll see what we can do.” Framingham has posted big numbers the past three weeks, averaging close to 35 points and 438 yards per game. “Framingham will be a big challenge due to their offensive weapons and big play capability.  Hopefully we can sustain and finish some drives.”

Kickoff time is noon this Sat., here in Plymouth at Currier Field.