STATEN ISLAND, NY – Monmouth junior wide receiver Lonnie Moore IV (Sicklerville, NJ/Paul VI) bounced off a tackler, kept his feet and sped to the corner of the endzone with 22 seconds left to lead Monmouth University (3-2, 0-0) to a 16-14 win over Wagner College (1-5, 1-0 NEC) on Saturday night.
 
Wagner pulled ahead in the defensive slugfest with 10:39 to play 14-10 before Monmouth's defense forced a punt and gave quarterback Kenji Bahar (Baltimore, MD/Calvert Hall) and the offense one last shot. With no timeouts and 1:58 to play Bahar surgically moved the Hawks down the field. Starting on the MU 29, Bahar proceeded to go six-for-six for 61 yards and ran for an additionally 24 yards as he set the Hawks up with fourth and goal from the one.
 
Bahar faked the handoff inside, rolled to his right and got the pass to Moore despite having a defender in his face. Moore got hit by the cornerback almost immediately but kept his feet and raced to the endzone for the lead. Wagner got the ball back on their own 22 with no timeouts left but picked up three yards in the waning seconds as Monmouth secured its sixth straight win in the series.
 
Matt Mosquera's (Middletown, NJ/Middletown South) 37-yard field goal on Monmouth's second drive would be the only scoring for the majority of the first half, with great field position coming courtesy of Anthony Budd's (Riverdale, MD/Good Council) fifth interception of the season.  Wagner took a 7-3 lead after capitalizing on a late Monmouth turnover, scoring on a six-yard run with six seconds left in the half.
 
Junior running back Pete Guerriero (Lyndhurst, NJ/Lyndhurst) gave the Hawks a 10-7 lead with a 16-yard touchdown run with 1:23 remaining in the third quarter, capping a four-play 41-yard drive. Wagner retook the lead with 10:39 to play on a four-yard pass from Alexander-Stevens to Jeremiah Lorick.
 
NOTES & QUOTES
"We knew going into it and we talked to the team this week about how this game would play out. We knew it was going to be a physical game, we knew they had the ability to make plays on both sides of the ball. We were going to have to grind it out and keep playing for the full 60 minutes. We played well enough to win the game but there are a lot of things we can do better as I told the team but we'll take a win like this." Monmouth Head Coach Kevin Callahan
 
"We just wanted to take care of the ball, Kenji made a couple of great plays, scrambling and getting out of bounds to conserve time. He did a really good job on the touchdown, just getting the ball to Lonnie as they brought some pressure. Lonnie was able to get it and made an awesome play after he caught the ball." Callahan on the final offensive drive of the game
 

• Bahar led the Hawks on a 12-play, 72 yard drive to win the game
• The Monmouth offense had 352 yards of total offense compared to 191 for Wagner
• Moore became the 13^th Monmouth player to eclipse the 1,000 yard plateau
• Monmouth's offensive line yielded just three tackles for a loss against the vaunted Wagner defense
• Pete Guerriero just missed a 100-yard rushing game finishing with 19 rushes for 94 yards but led the Hawks with 102 all-purpose yards
• Monmouth sophomore wideout Zach Tredway had a career day with nine receptions for 74 yards
• Monmouth has now won 15 of the 25 games in the series, including six consecutive
• The defensive battle was a sharp contrast from last year's 54-47 shootout in West Long Branch, where Reggie White Jr. took a screen pass 84 yards for a score with under two minutes to play in the fourth quarter
• Bahar moved past Kyle Frazier for second most passing yards in school history with 7,246 yards. He is just 567 yards away from becoming the all-time school leader
• It was Bahar's 39^th career game played which moves him into second all-time for Monmouth quarterbacks
• Guerriero also moved into third all-time in rushing with 2,513 yards. He is 63 yards away from the number two spot but still trails all-time leader David Sinisi by 2,536 yards
• Cornerback Justin Terry had four tackles, a sack and a pass breakup in the win. He now has 22 career passes defended for 11^th all-time at Monmouth
• Punter Ryan Kost, playing in just his second career game and first as a full-time starter averaged 41.6 yards per punt and had three punts over 47 yards

Numbers Crunch

• The two teams were a combined 2-of-13 on third down in the first half.
• Monmouth was whistled for 11 penalties for 113 yards while Wagner had five for 30 yards
• Freshman linebacker Tyler Delgado made his first career start while the Hawks had Tymere Berry back in the lineup as a starter for the first time in three weeks
• Monmouth's defense had eight tackles for a loss and four pass breakups in the game
• Erik Massey led the Hawks with nine tackles while Nick Shoemaker had six tackles, two for a loss and a forced fumble
• Kenji Bahar has now thrown a touchdown in 23 of his last 24 games

 
UP NEXT
Monmouth returns home next Saturday to host Presbyertian in the 2019 Big South season opener. Kickoff is slated for 1 PM and can be viewed on ESPN+