DSU’s Milstead calls game ‘a good test for us’

By Tim Mastro

DOVER — Delaware State University remained winless all-time against the University of Delaware in football, but DSU coach Rod Milstead said the Hornets learned some things in Saturday night’s defeat.

The Hornets were plagued by three first-half turnovers as the No. 8-ranked Blue Hens scored the game’s first 31 points before a late DSU rally made the final score 34-14. Delaware State fell to 0-10 in the history of the Route 1 Rivalry.

Delaware State dropped to 2-2 overall in the abbreviated spring football season. The Hornets finish their spring slate with a 6 p.m. home game against South Carolina State next Saturday.

“Delaware was a good test for us and they exposed some stuff that we need to work on,” Milstead said. “If we want to be mentioned with Top-25 teams, then we got to beat a team like the University of Delaware. This was a good test for us and we got one more week to go. That’s where our sights are set now, we can’t change what just happened but we have an opportunity to say what’s going to happen next week.”

The Hornets sputtered out of the gate in the first half. Quarterback Jared Lewis threw a pair of interceptions and the Hornets also lost a fumble.

Delaware State finished the first half with only 35 yards on 22 plays. The Hornets were out-gained in the contest 361-186.

Both of Delaware State’s touchdowns came in the second half and were set up by punt blocks.

Trey Gross scored the first one after Daniel Douglas blocked a UD punt in the end zone. Gross was able to pounced on the ball for the recovery before it rolled out of bounds.

The second punt block was reversed, with Gross doing the blocking and Douglas recovering. Lewis capitalized on the good field position with a QB keeper from seven yards out.

But the Hornets never could mount a challenge, thanks to four total turnovers.

“We haven’t done that all spring,” Milstead said. “First half, we turn it over three times so that was disappointing. But there were some good things that we saw. We had two punt blocks which gave us a boost. The offense moved the ball in spurts and our defense showed up even though they struggled a little bit at times. If this is any indication on how we’re going to be down the road, I like where we are. This spring is something we wanted to learn from and we have a lot of good film to learn from and build off of.”

Lewis finished with seven completions on 18 attempts. He threw for 92 yards, was intercepted three times and was sacked twice.

Sy’veon Wilkerson was Delaware State’s leading rusher with 55 yards on 33 carries. Tight end Myles Beverly was the top receiver for DSU, picking up a 24-yard reception.