The Dickinson Red Devils football team got off to a rocky start to the 2016 season, falling to visiting Randolph Macon College, 51-0, on Saturday afternoon.

The Red Devils’ first drive ended in an interception, leading to a Yellow Jacketstouchdown, as they marched 63 yards down the field and scored on an 11-yard pass with 9:40 to go in the first quarter. They held Red Devils on fourth down on the following drive to take over at the Dickinson 38. The Red Devils were able to stop the drive short of the endzone, forcing a 26-yard field goal, leaving Randolph-Macon up 10-0 at the end of the first quarter.

Dickinson’s defense  started the second quarter off with an interception by Erik Dettloff ’18, giving the Red Devils the ball at midfield. Stephen Walker ’19 booted a punt down to the 5-yard line after the drive stalled but the Yellow Jackets still managed to score  as Tre Frederick got away from the defense and went 95 yards to the house, putting Randolph-Macon up 16-0 with 12:22 to play in the half.

The teams traded punts on their next 2 drives before the Yellow Jackets scored with just under a minute remaining to take  a 23-0 lead into halftime.

Randolph Macon got the ball to start the second half before marching down the field to score on a seven-yard touchdown pass. J.J. Hill intercepted a pass and went 90 yards the other way to extend the lead to 37-0 halfway through the third quarter.

The Yellow Jackets closed out the game with a 67-yard touchdown rush from Eric Hoy and scored for the final time after a 56-yard drive in the fourth quarter to bring the final score to 51-0.

Quarterback Billy Burger ’19 threw for 129 yards, completed 15 of 34 passes and ran for 31 yards on the day. He connected with Jake Walbert ’19 for a 30-yard pass, his longest of the game. Walbert finished with 58 yards on 4 catches.

James Ward ’17 covered 58 yards on 4 kick-off returns, breaking the  former school record with 1,404 return yards in his career. He also holds the career kickoff returns record with 66.

Walker finished with eight punts for 321 yards on the day, averaging 40.1 yards per attempt, dropping three inside the 20.

Dettloff led the Red Devil defense with 9 tackles, a forced fumble and an interception. Kevin Sherry ’17 tallied eight stops and a tackle-for-loss. Bryan Latorraca ’18 and Tyler Heisey ’18 recorded 8 tackles apiece.

For Randolph-Macon, Tre Frederick finished with 177 yards rushing and 46 yards on returns to lead the Yellow Jakcets. Quarterback Joseph Vairo completed 11 of his 17 passes for a total of 94 yards. Christian Redman was the Yellow Jackets’ top receiver on the day, covering 52 yards on seven receptions. Conner Lane led the defense with eight tackles, including two for losses. Michael Farry and Billy Mullen tallied seven tackles each.

The Red Devils are on the road next week as they travel to Juniata to begin Centennial Conference play and return home on Saturday, September 17 to face off against Susquehanna.