GREENVILLE, Pa. – The Westminster College football team won convincingly, 55-7, at Thiel College in Presidents' Athletic Conference (PAC) action Saturday. The Titans had a 48-7 halftime lead, a pair of 100-yard rushers, and out-gained the Tomcats in total yards by 400 in the dominant conference victory.
Titan senior
Keano Grice (Delray Beach, FL / West Boca Raton) totaled 139 yards and four scores, including 116 yards rushing and three rushing touchdowns, all career-highs. The three rushing TDs were the most by a pure Westminster running back since Nick McKolosky achieved it 11 years ago (2008). Senior
Tyler Greene (Carlisle, PA / Carlisle) also eclipsed the century mark for a career-high 108 rushing yards and a score. The 100-yard milestone was the first for both Grice and Greene, while they became the first pair of 100-yard rushers in a game for Westminster since
Dominique McKinley and
Paul Columbo both surpassed 100 yards on the ground against Washington & Jefferson in 2016.
Senior
Connor Cox (Ridge, MD / Leonardtown) surpassed current head track & field and cross country coach and Titan Sports Hall of Famer
Tim McNeil for sixth all-time in career receiving yards as he caught a pair of touchdowns for 45 yards (all in the first half). Cox now has 1,859 career receiving yards, only six yards behind Dave Foley (1987-90) to tie for fifth all-time in Titan history. Cox is also one touchdown away from tying Dave Foley (1988) and Brian Lipiello (2001) for fourth all-time in program history for touchdowns in the season; Cox currently has a team- and career-high nine. Also on Saturday, Titan sophomore quarterback
Cole Konieczka (Coraopolis, PA / Moon Area) went 13-for-16 for 159 yards, three touchdowns, and no interceptions.
The Titan defense held Thiel to minus one yard rushing, the lowest since Westminster held Carnegie Mellon to minus seven yards in 2017. In total, Thiel could only muster 56 total yards, the fewest allowed by the Titans in more than 13 years. Westminster's defense registered nine tackles for a loss, paced by senior
Paul Gonzalez (Miami, FL / Florida Christian) and junior Nino Itri (Allison Park, PA / Deer Lakes) who each had two tackles for a loss. Itri and sophomore
Ian Barr (State College, PA / State College Area) each had a sack. Sophomore
Vincent Giles (Lexington Park, MD / Great Mills) had an interception and now has a team-leading four picks on the season. Titan freshman
Jarred Kohl (York, Pa / York Catholic) led the defense with a career-high five tackles, followed by fellow classmate
Daniel Thimons (Tarentum, PA / Highlands) who tallied a career-best four.
Westminster led 27-0 in the first quarter and 27-7 at the end of one. The Titan defense did not surrender a touchdown all game as the Tomcats only scored from a kickoff return. Westminster scored three more times in the second quarter and led 48-7 at intermission. The Titans' final score of the first half came off a senior connection from a five-yard pass by
Augustus Necastro (Brookfield, OH / Brookfield) to
Joey Joy (Gibsonia, PA / Pine-Richland), the first touchdown of the season for both. Grice scored his fourth overall touchdown in the third quarter (a 41-yard run), the lone points of the second half.
The Titans improved to 5-2 overall and 4-2 in the PAC, while Thiel dropped to 0-7 overall and 0-6 in the conference.
Westminster is back on the field Saturday, Oct. 26 at PAC foe Washington & Jefferson College at 1 p.m.
