BRIDGEWATER, Va. -- The Bridgewater College football team opens up its home schedule this week with a nonconference matchup with Southern Virginia on Saturday, Sept. 10.

Southern Virginia (0-1) at Bridgewater (1-0)
When: Saturday, September 10, 2022
Where: Bridgewater, Virginia
Stadium: Jopson Athletic Complex
Kickoff: 2 pm
Series Record: Bridgewater leads the all-time series, 3-0
Live Video: BridgewaterEagles.com/Video
Live Stats: bridgewatereagles.com/sidearmstats/football/summary

SCOUTING THE KNIGHTS: Southern Virginia is coming off of a season-opening loss to  Wilmington last Thursday, 52-27. Colten Shumway led the Knights offensively with 21 completions for 189 yards with four touchdowns and an interception. Jacob Wood led the ground attack for SVU picking up 99 yards on 22 rushes and Jake Schenk was the leading reciever in the loss with six catches for 80 yards and a touchdown grab. Despite giving up 510 yards in the loss, the Knights defense still added a sack and an interception. Colby Hyder led SVU with 10 total tackles.

SOUTHERN VIRGINIA HEAD COACH: Edwin Mulitalo enters his fourth season at the helm of the SVU football program. Mulitalo initially joind the Southern Virginia coaching staff in 2016 as a defensive line coach and was promoted to defensive coordinator the next season. Prior to coming to Buena Vista, Mulitalo began his collegiate football coaching career as an assitstant to the offensive line coach at Southern Utah University. Mulitalo played college football at the University of Arizona and won a Super Bowl in 2001 with the Baltimore Ravens. Under his direction SVU has tallied a 10-25 record including a 4-6 record during 2019.

LAST MEETING: Bridgewater picked up a 35-17 victory over the Knights a year ago. The Eagles trailed 7-0 early before a 37-yard catch by Dylan Maclachlan set the Eagles up nicely for the tying touchdown on the very next play. Bridgewater never looked back adding 18 more unanswered to find itself in front 25-7 midway through the third quarter. Schenk stopped the BC scoring run with a 58-yard TD catch to get SVU to within two possesions, but BC added another touchdown and a Jackson Hendren field goal to put the game away.

ALL-TIME SERIES: Bridgewater holds a 3-0 edge in the all-time series dating back to 2010. BC has outscored SVU 107-46 across all three meetings averaging a winning margin of just over 20 points per game. The closest contest of the series was in 2010 where the Eagles defeated the Knights 32-23 on home turf.

ODAC PRESEASON POLL: The Bridgewater College football team was picked to finish sixth in the annual ODAC Football Preseason Poll. Randolph-Macon walked away with six of the eight first-place votes to top the yearly head coaches' survey, while Washington and Lee received the last two first-place tallies and Hampden-Sydney rounded out the top three.

BRIDGEWATER IMPACT PLAYERS: The Eagles offense operated Saturday on a two-quarterback system seeing both Malcom Anderson and Jaylen Wood throw for over one hundred yards and a touchdown in the win. Anderson also added 32 yards on the ground while Ronald Robinson Jr. lead the Eagles on the ground with 44 yards on 11 carries. Viante Tucker was the top target a week ago grabbing seven passes for 84 yards. The defense for the Eagles was the true highlight from the week-one victory. Val West led the defense with eight tackles and Shawn Harris added seven stops of his own. In total, six different Eagles picked up five tackles or more in the win. The defense also created four takeaways that all featured in the second half as the Eagles picked off two passed and recovered a pair of fumbles.

ODAC DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE WEEK: Noah Hines was named the ODAC Player of the Week for his efforts in the win over Gettysburg on Saturday. Hines had six total tackles as well as a fumble recovery to negate a 30-yard play by the Bullets. Hines added an interception in the end zone that flipped the field and led to a Bridgewater touchdown to ice the game

D3FOOTBALL.COM TEAM OF THE WEEK: Aaron Moore was named to the D3football.com National Team of the Week on Tuesday morning. Moore had a 44-yard interception return for a touchdown to give BC its first lead of the game. Moore also totalled six tackles in the win and added a sack from the safety spot.

IT'S A FAMILY AFFAIR: This weekend is family weekend at Bridgewater College. Football will be at home against SVU at 2 p.m. and men's soccer will also play Gallaudet on Saturday and Marymount on Sunday. This is also the home opener for the football program. BC  has won four of their last five opening home games wit the only loss in that span being to Stevenson in 2018. Bridgewater is also 5-2 in home non-conference games in the regular season dating back to 2017. 

AROUND THE ODAC (WEEK 2): Coming off of a busy week one, week two will feature all eight teams in action. Guilford will look to move to 2-0 in a traditional nonconference matchup with Methodist, while Washington and Lee looks to get its first win of the season after dropping a defensive battle against Christopher Newport. No. 20 Randolph-Macon looks to stay undefeated as it make the trip to our nation's capital to take on Catholic.

OTHER BRIDGEWATER TEAMS IN ACTION: It will be another busy day for Bridgewater Athletics as seven other teams will be in action on Family Weekend.  Women's golf opens its season at the Shenandoah Fall Invitational and the women's team also opens its fall season at the Randolph-Macon Invitational. Volleyball will make the trip to Raleigh, N.C. for a tri-match with Brevard and Meredith, while women's soccer plays its first of two matches on the weekend in Salisbury, Md. against St. Mary's. Men's soccer is the only other team at home as it hosts Gallaudet.

OTHER SVU TEAMS IN ACTION: Plenty of Southern Virginia teams will also be in action on Saturday. The SVU volleyball program will be taking part in the Washington and Lee tournament in Lexington taking on Centre College and host Washington and Lee. The field hockey team will host Randolph-Macon, while its men's soccer team travels to Ferrum.

NEXT TIME OUT: Following the game with Southern Virginia, the Eagles travel to N.C. Wesleyan in a USA South/ODAC matchup. The game is set for Saturday, Sept. 17, at 12 pm as the Battling Bishops unveil their new Vernon T. Bradley Jr. Stadium.