Saturday was Senior day for the Montclair State University Red Hawks football team, which lost 33-10 to the Christopher Newport University Captains.
The Red Hawks defense came into Saturday’s game ranked third in the New Jersey Athletic Conference (NJAC) in points allowed and points allowed per game. Their opponent, Christopher Newport University’s defense, ranked number one in points allowed and points allowed per game, and it showed in this game, as Montclair State’s offense was thoroughly humbled.
After forcing Christopher Newport to punt on their first drive of the game, the Red Hawks received the ball at their own 47-yard line. The Red Hawks then put together a 10-play, 29-yard drive that ended in a missed field goal attempt from 42 yards.
Christopher Newport stormed right back up the field on an 11-play, 58-yard drive that ended with them kicking a 35-yard field goal to go up 3-0.
“At the end of the game, we had a tough time stopping the rush,” said Montclair State head coach, Mike Palazzo. “CNU did a really good job of only running one play and we couldn’t stop it– they were just running power. So that hurt us at the end and offensively, we struggled to just get anything going. We got a score late but early on we couldn’t convert on third down, we had a couple of third downs and short and didn’t get it and I thought it was going to be a little bit more of a tighter game early on, so I was punting and trying to play field position. Obviously in the first half that worked but in the second half that kind of got away from us.”
In the second quarter, Christopher Newport scored their first touchdown of the game on a one-yard run by Gunner White and took a 9-0 lead. With 2:30 remaining in the second quarter, Red Hawks starting quarterback Aidan McLaughlin was sacked and suffered a foot injury. Mason Murdock came into the game to play quarterback and helped engineer a 10-play, 45-yard drive that ended with a made field goal attempt by Greg Casimir to cut the deficit to 9-3 going into halftime.
Montclair State came out in the second half, running the ball strong behind sophomore running back Christopher Arnold. Arnold made gains of 10 and 6, taking the ball to the MSU 44-yard line. However, the Red Hawks were forced into a third-and-short situation, and Murdock got sacked for a loss of 7 yards, which forced Montclair State to punt.
The Captains received the punt at their 16-yard line and drove 67 yards on six plays to kick another field goal through the uprights to make the score 12-3.
Montclair State’s defense, which came into Saturday’s game ranked third in the NJAC in points allowed, was keeping it close. However, that would unravel in the remainder of the third quarter, as Christopher Newport’s quarterback Connor Barry completed a 59-yard touchdown pass to Trey Hayes to make it 19-3 with 1:38 remaining in the third quarter.
Christopher Newport got the ball back on the ensuing kickoff when Montclair State muffed the kick. This gave the Captains the ball at Montclair State’s 47-yard line, but they turned the ball over on downs at the Montclair State 29-yard line. On the first play of the drive, Murdock threw an interception at Christopher Newport’s 45-yard line.
Taking over nearly at mid-field, Christopher Newport capped off an 11-play, 55-yard drive with a four-yard rushing touchdown by Barry. The score was now 26-3 with 6:47 remaining in the game.
Christopher Newport kicked off to Montclair State returner Samaad Hicks, who returned the ball 27 yards to Montclair’s 45-yard line.
On the first play of their drive, Montclair State quarterback Mason Murdock completed a 15-yard pass to senior running back Makai Mickens, who then carried the ball for another 15 yards to the Christopher Newport 25-yard line. The Red Hawks were forced into a third-and-nine situation, but Murdock came through, completing a 24-yard touchdown pass down the left side of the field to Mickens. It was the Red Hawks’s first touchdown of the game in the fourth quarter, but it was too little too late.
“Mason’s a great kid. He’s started for us in the past, he’s a senior captain so he’s someone that we can count on. He’s a little bit of a different player than Aidan, he’s a little bit more of a shorter thrower and more of an athlete. You know, coming off the bench that’s not always easy, but we’ll plan around him…I’m happy for the kid that he got the opportunity, I’m not happy that Aidan got hurt but I was confident with Mason coming in.”
The Captains tacked on another touchdown on an eight-play, 55-yard drive, and the game ended 33-10 in favor of the visitors.
After the game, Montclair State head coach Mike Palazzo spoke about the 41 student-athletes who made up the largest senior class in program history.
“They’re great kids. My heart breaks for them because we couldn’t get them the win today, but they’ve given everything they had to this program. We got so many of them. Some of them came in as freshmen during COVID and the rest of them came in right after COVID when we were trying to rebuild the program after it got depleted a little bit during COVID. We’ve got all kinds of players in there — all kinds of personalities — and I love every single one of them, they’ve been awesome so I’m sad to see them go.”
This was Montclair State’s final home game of 2024, and they will now turn their attention to their final game of 2024. That will take place next week on the road against Muhlenberg College.
