New London, Conn. — October 31, 2026 — The Springfield College football team was powered by four touchdowns from Stanford Davis (Montague, N.J.) to defeat the Coast Guard Academy, 38-20, on Saturday afternoon in a New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) matchup.
Springfield improves to 7-1 overall and 5-0 in the conference while Coast Guard drops to 4-4, 2-3. The Pride entered the contest receiving votes in both the D3football.com and American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) national polls and sits in the 11th spot in the NCAA Power Index (NPI) rankings.
To go along with four touchdowns, Davis ran for 87 yards as Bradley Barcello (Weston, Conn.) had a touchdown of his own. The Pride totaled 357 yards of offense as they possessed the ball for just over 38 minutes of the game.
Nick Gonzalez (Parsippany, N.J.) led the Pride with seven tackles and an interception while Will Aviles (Bethlehem, Pa.) had four solo tackles, an interception and broke up a pass and Mike Mendicino (Pound Ridge, N.Y.) also had four tackles with a forced fumble. The Springfield defense had four pass breakups, four quarterback hurries, three interceptions while forcing three fumbles and allowed just 20 yards of rushing offense for the Bears.
After both teams went three-and-out to start the game, Coast Guard went on a six play, 83-yard drive before Sean Burns connected with Sam Bennett for a 37-yard touchdown. Caleb McClure's extra point attempt was blocked by Christian Johnson-Hall (Savannah, Ga.) as the Bears took the 6-0 lead. At the start of Springfield's following drive, James Green (Gales Ferry, Conn.) rushed for 46 yards before the ball was fumbled and then recovered by Barcello at the Coast Guard 18-yard line. Davis later ran it in for the touchdown and the extra point from Ian Wernik (Plymouth, Mass.) was good as Springfield took a 7-6 lead.
Gonzalez had a 40-yard interception at the end of the first to set Springfield up with a touchdown to start the second quarter after going on an 11 play, 74 yard drive for close to five minutes. Davis ran for 13 yards to get into the end zone and eventually take a 14-6 lead. Coast Guard responded, following up with a 21-yard touchdown from Matthew LaBouliere. The Pride then went three-and-out but on a punt from James Campbell (Oxford, Pa.), Kyle Melville (Berlin, Conn.) forced a fumble which Owen Dawson (South Hadley, Mass.) recovered and returned for 11 yards to set Springfield up at the Bear's 7-yard line. Barcello then scored and the Pride went up 21-13 through the first half.
Coming out of the halftime break, Coast Guard scored on its first drive of the third to make it a one point game. Both teams were scoreless for over five minutes before the Bears were forced to punt again, but after the ball was snapped over the punter's head and was then kicked out of the back of the end zone, a penalty was called and the Pride took over at the 1-yard line. Davis added another touchdown as Springfield extended its lead 28-20.
At 13:15 in the fourth quarter, Wernik kicked a 19-yard field goal to continue to add to the lead before the Pride held on to the ball for over five minutes, going on a 12 play, 56 yard drive highlighted by a 25-yard rush from Desmond Perezcastaneda (Brockton, Mass.) before Davis added the final touchdown of the game for the eventual 38-20 win.
Springfield will host Norwich on Saturday at 1:00 pm on Stagg Field.
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