Saxon Highlights of the Week

GREENVILLE, PA – The Alfred University football team opened up its 2019 campaign with a dominant, non-conference win at Thiel College, 42-0, Saturday afternoon at Thiel's Alumni Stadium.
 
The Saxons (1-0, 0-0 Empire 8) put up seven points in the first quarter but closed the half with a large, 28-0 second quarter before adding the seven insurance points in the third. "I was glad to see our team get off to a 1-0 start today," Head Coach Bob Rankl said. "We certainly did not play a perfect game but our guys came out and played very physical football for four quarters. In order for us to get where we want to be we need to eliminate all mental errors moving forward. That's our goal for next week."
 
The Saxon offense was a production machine as they totaled 520 yard of offense with 325 of them coming from the ground game. The Alfred University defense held the Tomcat offense to only 107 yard of total offense with only five yards of rushing. Alfred University did not have to punt once with only one turnover from a fumble.
 
To start the game, the Thiel offense looked productive as they managed to string together 14 plays for 65 yards to get to the Alfred seven yard line. A run attempt up the middle on first and goal was deleted when senior captain, Nick Milgate (Hilton, NY/Hilton) stuffed the runner and forced the fumble where Russell Kohler (Seaford, NY/St. Anthony's) recovered it, ending the drive and Thiel's only good opportunity to score on the day.
 
The ensuing Alfred University drive saw nothing but positive yardage with three completed passes and no incomplete passes. Aaron Griffin (Queens, NY/Holy Cross) rushed five times for a total of 27 yards in that drive but the big play was a Ben Burk (Lakewood, NY/Southwestern Central) pass to Zach Leinenbach (Penfield, NY/Penfield) for 30 yards down the side to the Thiel 14-yard line. The following play, Burk took the ball himself and ran it for 13 yards before Kevin Bragaglia (Holbrook, NY/Sachem North) punched it in from one yard out for what would prove to be the game-winning score.
 
Alfred University distanced itself from Thiel College in the second half as the Saxons piled on four touchdowns with three of them being on the ground. Griffin punched in for a one-yard score on the first offensive drive. Casey Boston (Brooklyn, NY/Midwood) ran the ball himself from 12 yards out just over two minutes later. Bragaglia waltzed into the end zone on a four-yard run with just under four and a half minutes until half time. A.O. Othman (Syracuse, NY/Christian Brothers Academy) snagged a 14-yard pass from Burk to close out the second quarter with just over a minute left.
 
In the third quarter, it was Boston that found Othman for the game's longest pass of 42 yards as he took that in for the last touchdown of the day. Dustin McCaslin (Ashville, NY/Chautauqua Lake) made all six PAT's on the day.
 
The Saxon run game had seven players touch the ball with all seven of them netting more than 15 yards and each of them averaging over 3.5 yards per carry. Burk led the team with 98 yards on six attempts. Boston and Burk both had one incomplete pass each as Boston was 5-for-6 for 107 yards and Burk was 7-for-8 for 71. Othman led the Saxon receivers with four catches for 60 yards while Leinenbach brought down two for 48 yards.
 
Defensively, the Saxons were led by senior captain, Leo Pamphile (Spring Valley, NY/Spring Valley) as he had 10 total tackles with seven solo tackles. He had 5.0 tackles for a loss of 25 yards and out of those, 4.0 of them were sacks for total losses of 24 yards to the Thiel offense. Milgate and Raeqwon Greer (Buffalo, NY/Canisius) followed Pamphile with eight and six tackles each, all six of Greers being solo hits and Milgate had six solos as well. The Saxon defense totaled 67 tackles on the day.
 
The Saxons will next open up their home schedule as they host George Fox University from Oregon on Saturday, September 14 at 1p.m.