Greensboro, NC - It was a beautiful Homecoming Saturday at Pride Field as the Greensboro football team earned their first win of the season over Southern Virginia 42-23.

The offense for Greensboro got off to a slow start early on, as the team had 3 turnovers. The Pride defense kept Greensboro in the game, however, and the offense would come alive late in the second quarter.

With the score tied 7-7, Greensboro's Tareek Smith ran one in the endzone with 4:47 to play in the first half to put the Pride ahead 14-7. The Knights cut the lead to 14-10 with a field goal just before halftime.

The third quarter is where the Pride pulled away and took any hope of victory away from SVU. Tre Jones caught a touchdown pass from De'yon Cannon with just under 12:00 to play in the third quarter to bring the lead to 21-10. Then on the next possession, Ja'Shawn Harris caught a short pass from Cannon and broke multiple tackles on his way to a 63 yard touchdown.

The third touchdown of the quarter came on a Tareek Smith 55 yard run, gashing the Knights defense and putting the game out of reach. In the fourth quarter, Cannon threw his third touchdown of the day to tight end Wes Kidd on a 44 yard strike down the middle of the field. 

Cannon finished the game 20-32 with 363 yards passing and 4 touchdown passes. Cannon was sacked just twice on the day. Tareek Smith led the Pride in rushing, running for 85 yards on 15 carries.

Wes Kidd led Greensboro with 7 receptions and 116 yards. Deaven Hawkins had 4 catches for 37 yards, and Coy Davis had 2 receptions for 48 yards.

Defensively, JaJuan Givens led the Pride with 9 tackles. The defense had 8 sacks total on the day. Freshman Frank Walker had a breakout game, totaling 6 tackles, 1.5 sacks, and 2 tackles for loss. 

Head coach Tyler Card said after the game, "I loved that our guys showed some resiliency to come out in the second half and really step it up. We played well in the first half but made some key mistakes. We fixed a lot of those and were able to finish a game like we knew we could. It was great to see some individuals step up and make some big time plays when we needed them to. The defense really showed their dominance out there and the offense lit up the scoreboard in the second half."

Greensboro will have a bye week next Saturday before taking the field again on October 12th at Brevard.