SBU's Maysonet, Jackolski total 341 rushing yards, five TDs

Two weeks ago, Stony Brook fell victim to a previously winless Lafayette team as a result of its own lack of discipline at crucial times. Coach Chuck Priore said the long postgame team meeting that followed was "the opposite of a tirade."

Some hard decisions were made. Defensive end Jonas Rousseau, the Seawolves' best pass-rusher, was removed from the roster for disciplinary reasons and Joseph Kirkpatrick, the other starting defensive end, was suspended for one game. At the same time, Priore admitted the coaches had been putting too much pressure on the players and needed to take a step back.

Call the approach the coaching version of good cop-bad cop, and give Priore credit for pushing the right buttons, because it worked. Stony Brook followed last week's road win at Coastal Carolina with its most dominant performance of the season in a 41-21 dismantling of Charleston Southern Saturday afternoon at LaValle Stadium.

It was Priore's 100th career game as a head coach (65-35). The win evened Stony Brook's record at 4-4 and left SBU in a first-place tie with Liberty in the Big South at 3-0.

Running back Miguel Maysonet set a stadium record and tied the school mark with four touchdowns, and Brock Jackolski, the other half of the best 1-2 punch in the conference, added a touchdown and 273 all-purpose yards. Maysonet rushed for 158 yards on 19 carries, scored on runs of 32, 8 and 9 yards and caught a 35-yard screen pass from Michael Coulter for another TD. Jackolski gained 183 yards on 16 carries, scored on a 1-yard run and had three kickoff returns for another 90 yards.

Maysonet (877 yards rushing, 10 TDs) and Jackolski (771, nine TDs) rank 1-2 in rushing and 2-3 in touchdowns in the Big South, and they have won a special place in Priore's heart.

"The best thing is they're great people," he said. "They're certainly talented, as we all know, but they come to practice every day with a smile on their face. I love coaching those type of kids."

All the Seawolves can smile again after showing in the past two games the character that Priore wanted to see.

"This group trusted and were smart enough to listen to our coaches," Priore said. "It wasn't an X's-and-O's thing. It was more having fun on the football field. Sometimes, as coaches, we put too much pressure on kids. To be candid, we backed off . . . We had to learn how to respect the game, and then we had to have some fun."

The game against Charleston Southern was a microcosm of the past three weeks. Stony Brook missed one field- goal attempt, had a TD called back because of a penalty and got another field goal blocked before falling behind 7-0 in the second quarter. Then the Seawolves scored five touchdowns in a 14:22 stretch spanning the second and third quarters. It was sheer dominance.

"Games are won and lost by how you handle adversity," Priore said. "In the first 15 minutes, we had our opportunities, and earlier in the year, those [missed] opportunities would get us down. I think we're growing up as a team."