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Moon Township, PA – Fifth-year senior cornerback Jarrett Dieudonne (Fort Lauderdale, FL/Dillard) highlighted a dominant defensive effort with a 99-yard pick-six and junior quarterback Chris Andrews (Queens, NY/St. Joseph's/Valley Forge Military Academy) rushed for 61 yards and a touchdown while passing for 95 yards, in leading Wagner to a 20-0 Northeast Conference (NEC) win at Robert Morris.
 
With the victory, which was seen on ESPN3.com. the Seahawks improve to 5-4 on the season and keep their NEC title hopes alive as they now boast a conference mark of 3-1. The Colonials fall to 1-8 overall, 1-3 in league play.
 
It's now a three-team race for the 2014 NEC Championship between Wagner, Bryant and Sacred Heart. The Bulldogs are 4-0 after today's 20-17 win at Duquesne while Sacred Heart is 4-1 following today's 35-27 victory at Central Connecticut.
 
Bryant and Sacred Heart meet next week in Fairfield, CT while the Seahawks return home to meet Duquesne in a Noon Senior Day clash.
 
The Green & White conclude the regular season on November 22 at Bryant.  A Wagner win over Duquesne next week, coupled with a Bryant win at Sacred Heart, would mean that the Seahawks-Bulldogs matchup in Smithfield, RI on November 22 would be for the NEC Championship.
 
Wagner got on the board via a safety in this one late in the first quarter when a high snap sailed over the head of RMU punter Tony LaMancusa who was standing on his own 30-yard line. The ball bounded into the Colonials' end zone before the quick-thinking LaMancusa scrambled back to kick the ball through the end line for a safety and 2-0 Wagner lead.
 
On the Seahawk's ensuing drive, senior kicker Bryan Maley (Eagle River, Alaska/Chugiak) booted a 37-yard field goal to make it a 5-0 game. Late in the first half, Wagner put together an impressive and well-executed 11-play, 73-yard drive, keyed by a 28-yard Andrews scamper on a designed quarterback draw that gave Wagner a first-and-goal at the two in the waning seconds of the half.
 
On third-and-goal from the RMU one, Andrews barreled his way into the end zone, with just 18 seconds left in the half, for his fourth touchdown run of the season. A blocked extra point made it an 11-0 Wagner lead at halftime.
 
With 9:03 left in the third quarter, Maley banged his second field goal of the game through the uprights, this one a 30-yarder, to make it a 14-0 game. That's the way things stood until Dieudonne came up with his big INT return. A missed extra point left Wagner with a 20-0 lead which wound up being the final score.
 
The shutout was the second recorded by the Seahawks this season as Wagner blanked Alderson Broaddus 26-0 on October 4. That win also featured a Dieudonne interception return for a TD which also capped that day's scoring as the Sunshine State native's 47-yard fourth quarter pick-six fashioned the final score at 26-0.
 
For Dieudonne, today's interception was his NEC-leading sixth of the season and 13^th of his career which ranks No. 6 on the Wagner all-time interception list and ties for sixth on the NEC's all-time list. In addition, his six INTs this season place him in a tie for fifth on the Seahawk single-season list and tied for second all-time on the NEC single-season list as eight different players are tied for first with seven single-season interceptions.
 
Diudonne's 99-yard INT return came on the final play of the third quarter and was a game-changer as Wagner was leading 14-0 at the time and the Colonials had it second-and-goal at the Seahawk four yard line. The 6-1, 190-pound Dieudonne snared a pass from RMU quarterback Joe Carroll at the one yard line and raced it back 99 yards.
 
Carroll was the third RMU quarterback to see action during the game as both starter Derik Abbott and backup Luke Brumbaugh were shaken up and forced to leave the game.
 
The 99-yard interception return is the second-longest in Wagner history. On November 12, 1966, Jim Jenkins returned an interception 104 yards for a score vs. C.W. Post.
 
Fifth-year senior safety Daniel Mack (Miami, FL/ Dade Christian) led Wagner defensively with six tackles and snared his second interception of the season, which he returned 50 yards, on the final play of the first half.
 
This complete team defensive effort included five different players recording five tackles each in Dieudonne, senior nose tackle Al Page (Bronx, NY/Christopher Columbus, senior linebackers Max Wassel (Totowa, NJ/Passaic Valley) and Jarrid Williams (Poughkeepsie, NY/Poughkeepsie), along with junior safety Bruce Brittingham (Trenton, NJ/Perkiomen School).
 
The relentless Seahawk defense registered a season-high five sacks for minus 46 yards which helped contribute to Robert Morris finishing with minus 17 rushing yards on 37 attempts as the Colonials managed just 132 yards of total offense. Wagner, meanwhile, churned out 120 yards on the ground to go with 95 passing yards for a total of 215 yards.
 
The Green & White defense entered the game ranked No. 5 nationally in rushing defense (94.8), 11^th in total defense (296.6) and No. 26 in scoring defense (20.6), and will rise in all categories following today's stifling performance.
 
Offensively, Wagner entered the game ranked No. 8 in the nation with a 33:00 minute time of possession average per game. Today, the Seahawks had the ball for 32:48, as opposed to RMU's 26:54 time of possession.
 
In addition to Andrews' game-high 61-yard rushing day, junior running back Otis Wright (Fort Lauderdale, FL/Dillard) added 43 yards on 19 carries. In the receiving department, fifth-year senior tight end Bryant Watts (Burlington, NJ/Florence) had three receptions for 32 yards while sophomore wide receiver Isaiah Gills (Bel-Air, MD/Harford Technical) had a team-high 54 receiving yards on two catches with a long of 39.
 
For RMU, Brumbaugh was 7-of-14 through the air for 91 yards and an interceptions with wide receiver Lamica finishing with 73 yards on six catches. Running back Ryan Thermil was the Colonials' leading ground-gainer with 41 yards on 22 carries.
 
Wagner is now 8-13 all-time vs. RMU, which is coached by former Pittsburgh Steeler John Banaszak who took over for Joe Walton, who was the only coach the Colonials' had ever had, taking over when the program was formed in 1994.
 
The victory was career win No. 221 for Wagner's 34-year head coach Walt Hameline, who now owns a career record of 221-139-2 (.613), with the 221 wins ranking No. 5 among active FCS coaches.

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