Sacred Heart Stuns Stony Brook 32-31, Erases 18-Point Fourth-Quarter Deficit on Snyder's TD With 11 Seconds Left

With six minutes to play at LaValle Stadium, Stony Brook led Sacred Heart by 18 points and had every reason to start thinking about Campbell. Then the Pioneers scored 19 points over the final 5:45, the last six on a Poochie Snyder throw with 11 seconds left, and walked out of Long Island with the biggest win of their first CAA season.

Sacred Heart beat Stony Brook 32-31 on Halloween afternoon. Snyder hit Jason Palmieri for a 6-yard touchdown with 11 seconds left to cap a 94-yard drive, and the Seawolves' last-gasp lateral play ended in a fumble that J. Armstead recovered as time expired.

The Pioneers improved to 4-4. Stony Brook fell to 5-4 and 3-2 in the CAA, one week after a gritty 27-17 win at Bryant that had the Seawolves sitting near the top of the league.

A goal-line stand sets the tone

The first quarter offered an early hint that Sacred Heart was not going to roll over. Stony Brook's M. McGoy picked off Snyder on the Pioneers' first possession and returned it to the Sacred Heart 35, and Quinn Boyd moved the Seawolves to first-and-goal at the 1. Three snaps later, they were still there. CJ Hester was stopped twice and Boyd's fourth-down throw to Seth Sweitzer fell incomplete.

Stony Brook's next drive ended the same way, without points. Hester broke a 26-yard run, but Jeremiah Lewis punched the ball out and Chris Williams recovered for Sacred Heart. Sacred Heart cashed in with a 42-yard field goal from Ryan Bocklet, who added a 33-yarder early in the second quarter for a 6-0 lead.

Boyd finds a rhythm

Stony Brook's passing game woke up in the second quarter. Boyd hit Hester for a 31-yard touchdown with 6:23 left in the half, and Michael Mannino's extra point put the Seawolves up 7-6.

Sacred Heart answered with its best drive of the half. Chuck Webb ran for 17, Dean Hangey picked up 14 more with a Stony Brook personal foul tacked on, and on third-and-5 from the Stony Brook 33, Hangey ran left for a 33-yard touchdown. That made it 13-7 with 1:52 left.

It did not hold up. Myles Hamilton sacked Boyd at the Sacred Heart 41, but on fourth-and-8 Boyd found D.J. Linkins for 16 yards, and two plays later the same pair connected from 19 yards out with five seconds left in the half. Stony Brook went to the locker room up 14-13.

Seventeen in the third

The third quarter looked like the end of the story. Boyd went to Linkins for 33 yards on the opening drive of the half and finished it with a 13-yard touchdown pass to Andrew Riggs at the 11:15 mark. Mannino added a 41-yard field goal with 5:22 left in the quarter. Then Riggs caught an 18-yard touchdown pass with 57 seconds left in the third, and it was 31-13.

At that point, Boyd had four touchdown passes and Stony Brook had scored 24 straight points. The Seawolves had the crowd, the momentum and an 18-point cushion.

The turning point

Sacred Heart's comeback started with a long, patient drive. Webb and Hangey ground out yardage, Snyder hit Hangey for 23 yards to the Stony Brook 20 and then found Errity for 12 more to the 2. Michalski scored from a yard out with 5:45 left. The two-point pass failed, so it was still 31-19.

The Pioneers went for the onside kick and did not get it, but the defense held. Stony Brook went backward after a holding call and punted to the Sacred Heart 7 with 3:56 left. After a 5-yard completion, Snyder threw deep down the middle for Darius Chukwuemeka, who turned it into a 53-yard gain, and a targeting call on the Seawolves tacked on 15 more yards. A Stony Brook holding penalty on a third-down incompletion kept the drive alive, and Snyder found S. Dowdy Jr. for a 4-yard touchdown with 2:09 left. Bocklet's kick made it 31-26.

Stony Brook recovered a second onside try and needed only a first down to end it. It did not get one. Sacred Heart burned its timeouts, the Seawolves ran three times for 7 yards and punted, and Palmieri fair-caught the ball at the Sacred Heart 6 with 1:48 to go.

Ninety-four yards in 97 seconds

What followed was the drive of Sacred Heart's season. Snyder hit Dowdy for 12, Palmieri for 23, Dowdy for 6 and Gentilella for 12 to get across midfield. Snyder kept the drive moving and found Hangey for 18 yards to the Stony Brook 6 with 16 seconds left.

McGoy broke up the first throw from there. On the next snap, Snyder found Palmieri for the touchdown with 11 seconds left. The two-point run failed, which meant Sacred Heart led only 32-31 and had to kick off one more time.

Stony Brook got a 10-yard return to its 45, and Boyd hit Linkins for 7 yards to the Sacred Heart 48 with two seconds left. On the final play, Boyd found Linkins again, Linkins pitched the ball to L. Martin, and Martin lost it. Armstead fell on it, and Sacred Heart had its win.

Snyder, Palmieri and Hangey

Snyder finished 28-of-43 for 309 yards with two touchdowns and the early interception, and added 21 rushing yards. Palmieri caught nine passes for 95 yards and the winning touchdown. Hangey did damage on both fronts, with five catches for 61 yards and four carries for 56 yards and a score. Webb ran 16 times for 90 yards, and Chukwuemeka turned two catches into 60 yards.

Defensively, Hamilton and Kymari Latney had seven tackles apiece, and Lewis had six tackles to go with the forced fumble that changed the first quarter. The goal-line stand in the opening quarter and the two second-half stops after the onside kicks were the difference.

Stony Brook's lost afternoon

It is hard to pin this one on Boyd. Stony Brook's quarterback went 29-of-40 for 333 yards and four touchdowns without an interception. Linkins caught nine passes for 138 yards and a score, Hester added five catches for 91 yards and a touchdown, and Riggs caught two touchdown passes. Sweitzer, the star of the Bryant win, caught eight balls for 48 yards.

Geno Calgaro led the defense with 12 tackles, and Anthony Ferrelli added 11. Khalid Bueno, who came in with 12 sacks this season, added another. Mannino was perfect again on kicks.

The problem was everything around the quarterback. Stony Brook ran for just 99 yards, was 5-of-12 on third down and could not manage a first down on either possession after the onside kicks, when one would have ended the game.

The numbers that tell the story

Sacred Heart outgained Stony Brook 490 to 432 and held the ball for 34:39. The Pioneers converted 10 of 17 third downs and ran for 181 yards, and they survived nine penalties for 100 yards. Each team lost the ball once before the final snap, Snyder on the early interception and Stony Brook on the Hester fumble. Every drive is in the ESPN box score (opens in a new tab).

What it means

For Sacred Heart, this is the kind of win that tells a new league the Pioneers belong. Next up is a home game against Towson on Nov. 7.

For Stony Brook, it is a gut punch at the worst time. The Seawolves came in tied near the top of the CAA, and next up is a trip to Campbell on Nov. 7, one of the hardest road games in the league.

The last word

Stony Brook did nearly everything right for 54 minutes. Boyd threw four touchdowns, the defense took the ball away early and the Seawolves built an 18-point lead. Sacred Heart simply refused to accept it. Three touchdowns in the last six minutes, two failed two-point tries and a 94-yard drive in the final 97 seconds. On Halloween, the scariest thing on Long Island was a Snyder drive with the clock running down.

Sources: ESPN box score, play-by-play and schedule data. More college football coverage on Undrafted.

Photos: Stony Brook University (file photo of LaValle Stadium).