RADNOR, Pa.— Eastern University Football rushed for over 300 yards in the first two-and-a-half quarters and held on for a 41-21 Homecoming win over the visiting King's College Monarchs.
Brett Nabb ran for a 140 yards and two touchdowns and threw for two more scores as the Eagles raced out to a 41-7 lead after two-and-a-half quarters.
Jeremiah Avrilien ran for 160 yards and two scores.
Eastern (4-1, 4-0) the lone team in the MAC without a league loss, made an early statement when they won the toss and elected to receive. King's (1-3, 1-3) kicked short to keep
Chris Rivera away from the ball. The Eagles marched 61 yards in five minutes and went up 7-0 on a Nabb pass to
Curtis Johnson in the corner of the end zone. With three throws for 21 yards Nabb had half his attempts and completions on the first scoring drive.
With a
DonJuan Clark III sack on third down, the Eastern defense held the Monarchs to negative yards on their first possession. Three plays later, Nabb raced around the left edge for 48 yards and another score.
The Monarchs pieced together a drive around the first quarter break and closed the gap to 13-7 with a 16-yard pass from Jaelin Mims to Nick Hoffman on the first play of the quarter. Last season's game between the two squads went down to the wire with the Eagles securing a 39-37 win with a defensive stop on a two-point conversion.
After
Sam Scell returned a short kick to the 40, the Eagles grabbed the seven points right back on a two-play drive capped by a 49-yard run from Avrilien.
After a Monarch drive went only seven yards, the Eagles took advantage of a huge punt return from Rivera to get back into scoring position. Rivera caught the ball near midfield in front of his own bench. After making a pair of tacklers miss early, the senior returner picked up a wall of blockers to get across the field and was tackled on the sideline at the 22. Avrilien scored on the next play for his ninth rushing score of the year.
Down 27-7, the Monarchs lost ten yards on their next possession and punted away to the Eastern 34 with over ten minutes not eh clock in the half. After a couple first down, the Eastern drive seemed to stall at the edge of the redzone. A negative play and a false start had the Eagles behind the sticks at 3rd and 17. In the only obvious throwing situation of the game, Nabb found
Devon Johnson over the top for a 28 yard score.
Though the Monarchs made some yardage on their next drive, they were forced to punt and the Eagles took the 34-7 lead into the locker room. While running for 233 first-half yards, Eastern held their guests to less than 100 yards of total offense. Nabb has 2961
After the Monarchs made only 15 yards on the opening drive of the second half, the Eagles went seven plays in 65 yards to ice the game. Nabb finished the drive with a two-yard run for his fifth running score of the year. He and Avrilien each have 30 running touchdowns in their careers. Today's game marked the tenth time the duo each went over 100 yards in a game. Nabb has 2961 rushing yards in his career and Avrilian has 2947.
The Eagles finished with 308 yards running to go over 300 rushing yards for the third time this year.
With the big lead and half the season to go, the Eagles went to reserves on offense. With the play sheet shortened to keep the clock running, the Eastern offense gained less than 30 yards in the final 20 minutes of action while the Monarchs had their best success of the day and did some cosmetic work on the scoreboard against the defensive rotation.
DonJuan Clark III had another impressive day on defense. The sophomore from Philadelphia finished with nine tackles and 1.5 sacks. With King's needing to pass, the Eastern defensive line finished with six sacks.
The win keeps the Eagles ahead of a group of three one-loss teams in the MAC. Delaware Valley kept pace with a decisive home win over FDU-Florham, Misericordia had a goal-line stand as time expired to earn a 21-17 win at upstart Alvernia, and Stevenson held off a late rally from the hosts to earn a 27-24 win at LVC.
The Eagles will host Blue Route-rival Widener next Saturday at 1:00 pm. The Pride dropped a 26-7 decision to Albright this afternoon.
