In front of a packed crowd under the lights at Hunter Stadium on Saturday night, Lindenwood football (2-2, 1-0 OVC/Big South) used a dominant first half to edge Stony Brook (1-3, 0-1 CAA) 30-27 in its 2025 home opener.
Lindenwood jumped out to a huge 27-3 lead into the first half as they scored on all three of their second quarter drives as Nate Glantz had the offense humming moving them up and down the field going on long drives of nine plays 90 yards, five plays 68 yards and 10 plays 85 yards.
On the other side of the ball, the Lindenwood defense held Stony Brook to four punts, a field goal and a forced fumble in the opening half.
“We talked about setting the tone this whole week instead of starting slow,” Head coach Jed Stugart said in his postgame press conference. “Sanjay Strickland had a big hit early, and that really triggered how our defense played in the first half.
Glantz continues to shoulder the load
Senior quarterback Nate Glantz once again led the charge, completing 20 of 29 passes for 249 yards and two touchdowns while adding 104 yards and a score on the ground. His highlight came on a 51-yard burst that set the tone for the Lions’ offense.
“Nate’s just kind of putting the team on his shoulders right now,” Stugart said. “When your quarterback puts his head down and runs over dudes because he wants that touchdown, you can just hear the sideline, defensive guys yelling, ‘That’s my quarterback.’ The team feeds off of him.”
Stugart also praised Glantz’s growth as a decision-maker. “He actually slid twice and ran out of bounds once, that’s a major milestone,” Stugart joked. “Last year it took him time to learn our offense. Now he just has a grasp on everything, and he doesn’t get rattled. He just moves on to the next play.”
The performance earned Glantz OVC/Big South Offensive Player of the Week honors, as he now sits at 10 total touchdowns through the first four games of the season.
Lindenwood rushing attack that compiled 216 yards as a team. Jaren Rhodes was the second leading rusher, as the St. Louis Missouri native rushed for 85 yards on 12 carries, including a huge 48-yard run, in his first breakout performance of 2025.
“I just told Jaren when we were pinned back at the two-yard line, this could be the type of drive that takes the wind out of their sails,” Stugart said. “And he delivered.
Steve Hall chipped in with a rushing touchdown but was limited to just 20 yards on his 11 carries as both Hall and Rhodes were limited throughout the game as both were dealing with ankle injuries.
The name is Bond, Rico Bond
The redshirt freshman from East St. Louis continues to be a fantastic weapon for the Lions offense as Bond hauled in eight passes for 119 yards and two touchdowns as both of Bond’s touchdowns went for 34 yards including one on a fourth and three where Glantz threw a beautiful over the shoulder throw to Bond who caught it in stride and waltzed into the endzone.
“He played like a freshman in week one,” Stugart said. “But he took that to heart. He wanted to be coachable, and he’s growing up fast. I’m so proud of him, because he’s a guy that cares about this team. He’ll catch anything, and now he’s running routes exactly where he’s supposed to be.”
Stugart highlighted the trust Glantz and the coaching staff have in Bond, pointing to the final first down of the night. “That last third down, we knew we were going to run it to Rico down the seam,” he said. “It was a gutsy call, but we believed in him. If we don’t make it, we’re punting right back to them. That’s the kind of confidence we have in him.”
Bond’s effort awarded him OVC/Big South freshman of the week for the second time this season.
Seawolves Strike Back
Out of the locker room Stony Brook came out with a fire as after a first drive punt, Chris Zellous led his team on two straight touchdown drives to cut the Lindenwood lead to 27-19 as Zellous hit Jayce Freeman for a huge 65-yard touchdown pass and Roland Dempster rushed for a five yard touchdown run putting the Seawolves back in the game.
“They get scholarships too,” Stugart said. “When momentum shifts like that, you really get to see the character of your football team. We probably even started calling plays on our heels, trying to shut it down. But then we got back to being aggressive, and that’s who we are.”
Lindenwood decided to roll the dice again on fourth down midway through the fourth quarter as the Lions faced a fourth and five from the Stony Brook 22 yard line where Glantz floated one into the back corner of the endzone in the direction of Drew Krobath but the pass sailed on Krobath and he landed out of bounds ending an 11 play 53 yard drive with zero points.
Both teams traded punts to start the fourth Lindenwood rumbled down the field, draining the lead by a huge 48-yard run by Rhodes to set up Will Graham’s first made field goal of the season from 31 yards out to give the Lions lead some cushion at 30-19.
Zellous would get the ball back and have the Seawolves motoring right back down the field before he hit Freeman again, this time from 10 yards out and then find MarQeese Dietz for the ensuing two point conversion to cut the Lions lead to only a field goal at 30-27.
Stugart emphasized the importance of keeping composure when Stony Brook made its push. “When you see momentum shift, you can’t show panic on your sideline,” he said. “You can’t get loud, because that’s when they start to sense it. We just kept going back to basics and told our guys, go have fun playing football again.”
Lindenwood got the ball back with 4:23 left in the game, hoping to drain the rest of the clock and seal the win. Lindenwood would force Stony Brook to use all three of their remaining timeouts before facing a third and 11 from the Stony Brook 44-yard line where one first down would end the game.
Glantz would take the snap and fire a strike right across the middle to Bond for his eighth reception of the night for 13 yards giving Lindenwood a first down and ending the game as Glantz would kneel it three times to run out the rest of the clock and give the Lions a 30-27 in their 2025 home opener.
“At the end of the day, we made the plays when we needed to shut it down,” Stugart said. “Every week has been a new lesson for us. We started fast this time, now we’ve got to learn how to finish.”
Tajay Passmore led the defensive effort for the Lions as he tallied two sacks and a forced fumble in the game and was a force of the edge forcing Stony Brook to have a revolving door of players come in at left tackle. Nolan O’Hara also collected a sack during the game.
Lindenwood heads back out on the road to finish out their non-conference portion of the schedule in 2025 as they head up to Oxford Ohio to take on Miami University (OH) on Saturday, Sept. 27 with the opening kickoff coming at 2:30 p.m.
The game will be streamed exclusively on ESPN+ or be listened to locally on 89.1 KCLC: https://streamdb3web.securenetsystems.net/cirrusencore/index.cfm?stationcallsign=KCLC
