WASHINGTON – At least one Maryland state school won Saturday in college football.
After the Terps lost 45-6 at West Virginia, Salisbury won a 91-7 victory over Southern Virginia, the first home game in their new conference, the New Jersey Athletic Conference.
This was a record for the Sea Gulls — the previous record was an 84-7 win over Husson University back in 2010. The record for most points scored in a single Division III football game is 105, set by Rockford against Trinity Bible in 2003.
Despite the score, the Gulls didn’t “run it up” on Southern Va., who are in just their second season in Division III football and only won one game last season.
Salisbury head coach Sherman Wood played his backup quarterback after the starter was injured. Wood also used his third and even fourth-string signal caller, as the Sea Gulls just kept on scoring. The fourth and fifth-string running backs also saw some action.
Sophomore punter Tim Steindl never punted and instead kicked off 13 times. Even sophomore place-kicker Alex Potocko tied the record for most extra points scored (12), with third string kicker Freshman Trevor Skoglund scoring the final point after touchdown, in the Gull’s final scoring drive.
The score may have been the big story, but the way the athletes from Southern Virginia played is commendable. The team never hung their heads, even after the game was far out of reach. The Knights played ‘clean’ and met the standard of true student-athletes.
In fact, players from the Virginia Mormon school, which can lose students to mission work at any time, were there to do their best. Even if the score wasn’t on their side, they showed up, never quit and displayed true sportsmanship.
J. Brooks is a sports reporter for WTOP, and has been calling Salisbury games since 2004.
