Bennett |
Meyer |
Willis |
Bennett, Meyer and Willis to lead Skyhawks in upcoming season
EASTON, Mass. (August 7, 2013) – With training camp just a week away, Stonehill College football head coach Robert Talley has announced the Skyhawks three senior captains for the upcoming 2013 season.
Seniors Tim Bennett (Fillmore, Calif./Saint Bonaventure), Logan Meyer (Ventura, Calif./Saint Bonaventure) and Justin Willis (East Haven, Conn./Notre Dame) have been voted the team captains by their teammates and will lead Stonehill into the new season, which commences with training camp next Thursday, August 15.
Bennett enters his final season as a three year starter at defensive back, having played 31 games over his career. He was an NE-10 All-Rookie Team selection as a freshman when he also collected NE-10 Rookie of the Week honors twice and has compiled 136 tackles, 83 solo, including 7.0 for a loss of 20 yards over his career. Bennett is tied for seventh in program history with eight career interceptions, returning one for a touchdown in a win at Saint Anselm in 2010, and his 12 career pass breakups are good for tenth in program history.
Bennett, who is one of just 17 players all-time at Stonehill with an interception return for a touchdown, is coming off a 2012 season in which he was fourth on the team with 51 tackles (29 solo), a team high four interceptions and three pass breakups. He ranked second in the NE-10 for interceptions last season after ranking third with his four pickoffs as a freshman.
Meyer enters his senior season as the program's all-time leader with 378 career pass completions, while his 4,661 career passing yards ranks second on Stonehill's career list and is just 234 yards shy of Hall of Famer Tony Dello Iacono's school-record of 4,895 yards. Meyer has completed 378 of 697 passes (54.2-percent) over his career, ranking third all-time for attempts, with 36 touchdowns, which is good for fourth in program history – ten shy of Dello Iacono's record of 46.
Meyer is coming off a record-setting junior season for Stonehill in which he completed a school-record 166 passes for a record 2,215 yards and 20 touchdowns, which is the second-highest single-season total in program history. He broke his own single-season record for passing average with 246.1 yards per game, while his career-best 127.7 efficiency rating is sixth-best all-time at Stonehill – highest among quarterbacks with 250-plus attempts. Meyer also boasts the top three single-game passing yardage totals in program history, including a record 385 yards on 24-for-35 passing and a school-record matching six touchdowns at Pace University last season. He finished the year ranked third among NE-10 leaders for yards per game, completions and touchdowns, fourth for passing yards and pass attempts and sixth for completion percentage.
Willis has appeared in 25 games as a tailback over his three seasons at Stonehill. He has carried the ball 198 times over his career for 781 yards and five touchdowns, averaging 3.9 yards per rush. He has also caught six passes for 40 yards. Willis has earned NE-10 Commissioner's Honor Roll status over his career and posted a career-best 425 yards on 98 carries (4.3/att) in 2012 with three touchdowns, finishing second on the team for yards.
Willis rushed the ball a career-high 100 times for 356 yards and two scores his sophomore season, when he also made six catches for 40 yards. He enters his senior season with 821 career all-purpose yards.
Stonehill's ten game schedule opens on Saturday, September 7, when it visits Bloomsburg (Pa.) University, ranked 17th in the final 2012 American Football Coaches Association Top 25 poll, from the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) for the second of a two-year home and home series between the two programs. Stonehill's first home game is the following Saturday, September 14, when it hosts Saint Anselm College for the "Battle for the Ol' Bronze Hawk" at W.B. Mason Stadium at 6 p.m.
Stonehill finished its 2012 season with a 5-5 record overall, including a 5-3 clip in the Northeast-10 to mark the Skyhawks first winning season in Conference play since Talley's first season in 2007. Stonehill was named the Northeast-10 "Team of the Year" by d2football.com, while Talley received the website's Conference Coach of the Year and the Skyhawks' nationally-televised matchup with No. 3 University of New Haven was labeled as blog's NE-10 Game of the Year.
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