KALAMAZOO, MI- Monmouth University (0-1) opened up the season with a 48-13 setback to Football Championship Subdivision foe Western Michigan (1-0) on Saturday night.
 
Pete Guerriero (Lyndhurst, NJ/Lyndhurst) became the fastest Monmouth player to hit the 2,000 yard mark, doing it in 21 career games and 319 carries. The junior finished with 107 yards on 23 carries for the Blue & White. The Monmouth offense churned out 322 total yards against the Broncos while the MU defense held first-team All-MAC running back LeVante Bellamy to 53 yards on 18 carries with one touchdown.
 
Western Michigan built a 21-0 lead in the first quarter as the Hawks got off to a slow start. A dropped punt gave the Broncos great field position, who needed just 13 total plays to score three times. From there the Hawks settled in allowing just 10 points in the second quarter while getting a TD from Guerriero. The first half ended with Monmouth coming within one yard of outscoring Western Michigan in the second stanza.
 
WMU started the second half with three straight scores, hitting on a couple of big plays. The Hawks got on the board for the second time when Kenji Bahar (Baltimore, MD/Calvert Hall) found Terrance Greene Jr (Philadelphia, PA/St. Joe's Prep) for 14 yards with 6:26 to go in the third quarter. WMU placekicker Thiago Kapps finished the scoring with 8:40 remaining with a short field goal after Monmouth's rush defense stopped the Broncos on three straight tries inside the five.
 
Senior quarterback Jon Wassink tied a career-high with five touchdown passes on 20-of-25 passing for 368 yards. Kenji Bahar (Baltimore, MD/Calvert Hall) finished 26-of-41 for 194 yards.
 
NOTES & QUOTES
"We started the game exactly the way we knew we couldn't. We had several first quarter penalties and turned the ball over on the first possession on the punt. When you play an FBS level team you have to control the things you can control. We had a lot of trouble covering those guys on the perimeter and getting them on the ground. The positives coming out, I thought our defensive front  did a very good job against the run, I thought they battled. The offense, while we didn't get in the endzone as much as we'd like, show a lot of grit and played really hard."
-Monmouth Head Coach Kevin Callahan

Coach Callahan on stopping the run and the defense
"I thought they played extremely hard, we had a good plan in place going into the game. We thought Western Michigan was a team that would prefer to run the ball and we wanted to neutralize that. I thought we did a good job for the most part. We were victimized over the top  for some big plays and any time you play a higher level team you can't give them any easy scores scores and we made it too easy on a few occasions."

• MU placekicker Matt Mosquera missed his first extra point in 49 attempts when his third quarter PAT rang off the left upright. His last miss was Nov. 4, 2017 against Presbyterian.
• Guerriero rushed for over 100 yards for the 12^th time in his career, moving him into second place all-time at Monmouth.
• Monmouth is now 0-4 all-time against FBS opponents – all coming against the Mid-American Conference.
• Linebacker Da'Quan Grimes had seven tackles and a forced fumble in the contest.

 
NEST NOTES

• It is the second straight game against an FBS foe that Monmouth has had 100-yard rusher (Farri)
• Prior to tonight, Dave Sinisi held the record for fastest player to 2,000 rushing yards, achieving that in his 23^rd game and 282^nd carry.
• Monmouth used four different kick returners in the contest
• Joey Aldarelli had a career-high six receptions for 48 yards
• Tight end Shawn Clark had a career-high four receptions and 34 yards
• Junior safety Anthony Budd led Monmouth with eight tackles including five solo stops
• Neither team registered a turnover in the contest

UP NEXT
Monmouth returns home to face Lafayette next Saturday at 1 PM.