NORFOLK, Va. — Jason Wonodi returned two punts for touchdowns and rewrote three program records doing it, Marco Peery made a school-record five field goals including a career-long 48-yarder, and Norfolk State scored 32 unanswered points to defeat Hampton 42-21 on Saturday afternoon in the 61st Battle of the Bay before 17,239 at William "Dick" Price Stadium.
The win moves the Spartans to 2-2 on the season, their best start through four games since 2023, and snaps Hampton's two-game hold on the rivalry. Norfolk State pushes its lead in the all-time series to 31-29-1.
It is the Spartans' first win over Hampton since a 31-23 decision at Armstrong Stadium in 2023, and their first over the Pirates at William "Dick" Price Stadium since a 24-14 victory on Sept. 26, 2015 — nearly 11 years. The 42 points are the most Norfolk State has scored against Hampton since a 47-44 overtime win on Oct. 2, 2021.
For head coach Michael Vick, it was a third career coaching win, a first in the Battle of the Bay, and the first of his coaching career over a Division I opponent.
"This was excellent in all three phases," Vick said. "I was really impressed with our team, especially after going down 7-0. They came out and they took the momentum away from us. We went right back down and we got three."
Hampton did take the opening blow. Amari Pryear's 21-yard touchdown run capped an eight-play, 73-yard march on the game's first possession for a 7-0 lead. Norfolk State answered with a nine-play, 61-yard drive that ended in Peery's 21-yard field goal, then took its first lead when Wonodi's 37-yard punt return set the offense up at the Hampton 28 and Deljay Bailey scored from a yard out six plays later.
The Pirates responded five seconds into the second quarter, as Tre'Von Taylor found Noah Colon from nine yards for a 14-10 edge. It was the last time Hampton would lead, and the last points the Pirates would score for more than 42 minutes of game clock.
Peery bails out a drive that went backward
Daizon Allen intercepted Taylor and returned it 29 yards to the Hampton 26, but a holding penalty pushed the Spartans back and the drive lost four yards across four plays. Peery came on from 48 — seven yards beyond anything he had made in his career — and split the uprights.
The kick broke his previous career long of 40 yards, set a week earlier at Virginia, where it accounted for Norfolk State's only points of the afternoon.
Peery would not miss again. He added a 26-yarder as the first-half clock expired, capping a 12-play, 77-yard drive that consumed 1:40, then connected from 46 in the third quarter and 27 in the fourth. He finished 5-for-5 on field goals and 3-for-4 on extra points, accounting for 18 of the Spartans' 42 points.
The five field goals are a Norfolk State single-game record, both for the team and for an individual kicker. The team mark of four had been set four times, most recently at Morgan State on Nov. 12, 2011. The individual record of four had belonged to Justin Castellat against Virginia State on Sept. 1, 2007. Peery's 48-yarder also tied for ninth on the program's list of longest field goals, matching Everett Goldberg's 48-yarder at Old Dominion on Nov. 26, 2011.
Wonodi - The return man
Between Peery's 48-yarder and his buzzer-beater came the play that turned the afternoon.
Brenden Thompson sacked Taylor for a seven-yard loss, Hampton was flagged for intentional grounding on the same snap, and Bryan Ramirez punted from his own 36. Wonodi fielded it at the Norfolk State 24 and went 76 yards untouched.
"We were stuck a little bit. We had to punt the ball off," Wonodi said. "So I said, we've got to change the game right now. We need to score right now. If we don't, it's going to be a little hard to get some points on the board."
He was not done. With 2:59 remaining and the Spartans already ahead by three scores, Wonodi took a 54-yard Ramirez punt at the NSU 43 and took it 57 yards to the end zone. He finished with three returns for 170 yards — a 56.7-yard average, and 170 of the 258 yards Ramirez punted all day.
Per Norfolk State game records, the first return was the program's first punt returned for a touchdown since Nov. 3, 2018, at North Carolina A&T. Wonodi had a second one before the afternoon was over.
The day rewrote the program's punt return records. Wonodi's 170 yards are a Norfolk State single-game record, both individually and as a team total, surpassing the 157 yards Chad Smith returned on four attempts against Delaware State on Nov. 11, 2000 — a mark that had stood for nearly 26 years. His 56.7-yard average broke the team single-game average record of 39.3, set in that same Delaware State game. And his 76-yard return tied for fourth on the program's list of longest punt returns, matching Emery Sammons at South Carolina State on Oct. 7, 2006.
"It doesn't really surprise me, because I've known all my life that I had it in me to do something like this," Wonodi said. "Especially to make history at NSU."
The afternoon carried more weight than a stat line for Wonodi, who missed last season with an injury.
"Last year, it hurt," he said. "If I hadn't gotten hurt last year, that would have been my last season ever playing college football. So after I got hurt, I had to put in the work and get back healthy."
"Scoring two touchdowns for 170 yards means everything to me, because I missed that a lot last year. My team needed me and we had a bad record. So this season I'm here and I'm ready to show up."
Vick said the staff had made special teams the week's emphasis.
"My one point for this week was, if we get one big play out of special teams, I think that would be the difference in the game," Vick said. "And I just didn't know we were going to have two. So I asked for it, and I got it. They delivered."
Wonodi deflected toward the unit and its coach.
"We put a lot of preparation into it going into this game all week," he said. "Coach Gildersleeve said, 'We haven't done anything. We've got to do something in this game.' And that was stuck in my head all game."
"It wasn't only me returning. We had a bunch of good plays on kickoff. We pinned them inside the 10 a few times," he said. "The first few games it was kind of hard getting on the field with the guys we had. A lot of subs were being made. But we figured it out this week. We've got our solid 11 guys now."
Jake Walker averaged 57.0 yards on nine kickoffs with three touchbacks, and Hampton began drives at its own 8 and its own 2 in the second half.
Grinding the clock
Norfolk State controlled the game on the ground, running 51 times for 240 yards and holding the ball for 34 minutes, 50 seconds to Hampton's 21:26. The Spartans ran 77 plays to the Pirates' 59 and punted twice all afternoon.
Jalyn Daniels carried 22 times for 102 yards. Ravon Moore Jr. added 84 yards on 12 attempts, averaging 7.0 per carry, and scored from a yard out in the fourth quarter after breaking off a 27-yard run to the doorstep.
"Our objective was to come out and control the pace of the game," Vick said. "It's all about keeping the chains moving, keeping the defense fresh."
Bailey completed 17 of 25 passes for 184 yards without an interception and added 48 rushing yards and a score. Elyjah Mitchell caught seven passes for 85 yards and Paul Billups II added four for 47.
"I think DelJay played great. It's all about efficiency for him," Vick said. "He did a great job tonight of just playing keep-away with the defense and protecting the football, moving the chains, and using his legs when he had to."
"DelJay's growing each and every week. The last two weeks, getting that experience going against ODU and UVA, I think it really calmed him down for today."
Six sacks, two picks, no giveaways
The Norfolk State defense sacked Taylor six times for 40 yards and held him to two net rushing yards on 15 attempts. The six sacks tie for 10th in program history for a single game, and are the first time the Spartans have reached six since a win over Morgan State on Oct. 28, 2023. Malik Moses recorded 3.0 tackles for loss and 2.0 sacks. Thompson led the team with eight tackles, six of them solo, and added a sack and a quarterback hurry. Jeremiah Henry's sack went for 14 yards, the longest of the day.
Hampton was held to 105 rushing yards and 283 total. Allen and Tormon Laprade intercepted Taylor, Laprade returning his 40 yards on the game's final play from scrimmage. The Spartans did not turn the ball over.
"My defense — I love those guys," Vick said. "They give me a hard time because I spend a lot of time with the offense. I just tell them, defense wins championships."
Points left on the field
Vick was not entirely satisfied. Norfolk State turned the ball over on downs twice, the costlier one a fourth-and-1 stop at the Hampton 1-yard line in the third quarter that ended a nine-play, 70-yard drive. It was the Spartans' only red zone trip of the day that did not produce points; they finished 5-for-6 inside the 20, and three of those five were field goals.
"We had some opportunities to score, make some plays, and we settled for a lot of field goals," he said. "I felt like we should have converted those to touchdowns. A lot to clean up, a lot to go back and look at."
"This is one of the wins where you look at the score and it really doesn't reflect the things that happened. But I take it. I thought our team was learning how to win."
From the Hampton side
Hampton head coach Van Malone opened his postgame by crediting the Spartans.
"I'd like to give congratulations to the Norfolk State team," Malone said. "Coach Vick, those guys played extremely hard, and it was a hard-fought victory."
Malone was direct about where the game turned.
"I was not pleased with our performance on special teams. I was not pleased with our performance in the second half offensively," he said. "Defensively, we were put in some situations that were not good, not favorable, but our defense continually rose up."
Asked what changed after the Pirates took a 14-10 lead, he pointed at Norfolk State's defensive front.
"You've got to give Norfolk State some credit," Malone said. "Those guys fought. They played hard defensively. They continued to attack. They continued to pressure us. They continued to not make it easy for us to move the ball down the field."
He described the cost of falling behind the sticks in the terms of a career defensive coach.
"Once we get them behind the chains, I am now in control. The play-call sheet is expansive for a defensive coach, but for an offensive coach, now he's limited. There's only a few things you can do offensively once it's second-and-13."
Malone said the Pirates were without starting quarterback Jalen Woods, who did not play because of a concussion, and that Tre'Von Taylor got the start in his place.
"Trey will tell you he struggled a little bit today. The moment was quite big at some point during the day," Malone said. "But we still have great confidence in him. Everybody has a bad day at the office. At the end of the day, you lean on the quarterback. When the quarterback does not play well, the team does not play well."
What he would take from it was the way his team finished.
"This team, in the past, would have unraveled all over the place. They wouldn't have finished the game. They wouldn't fight," he said. "Through adversity, I continue to see them fight. I just want them to believe in themselves and believe in their coaches the way we believe."
Safety Qwae Willis, who finished with 11 tackles, said the Pirates' red zone work was the one thing that held.
"Once they get inside the 20, we hold them to three. We held them to three about five times," he said. "But the downs we held them to three, we gave up the third down. Missed tackles. So one thing we can go back and do is fix the tackling."
On the fourth-quarter goal line stand that kept Norfolk State out of the end zone from the 1:
"Every week we work on situations. We tell each other that we've got to stand tall and we can't let them score. Come away with threes."
"We try our best to stop them three-and-out. But sometimes you don't get it. The mindset is, you can give it up, but you can't give it up all the way. You eventually have to come to a stop."
THE RECORD BOOK
Set or tied on Saturday:
| Mark |
Result |
Previous |
| Punt return yards, game (individual) |
Jason Wonodi, 170 — program record |
Chad Smith, 157 (4 ret.) vs. Delaware State, 11/11/2000 |
| Punt return yards, game (team) |
170 — program record |
157 (4 ret.) vs. Delaware State, 11/11/2000 |
| Punt return average, game (team) |
56.7 (3 for 170) — program record |
39.3 (4 for 157) vs. Delaware State, 11/11/2000 |
| Longest punt return |
Wonodi, 76 — ties for 4th all-time |
Ties Emery Sammons, 76, at South Carolina State, 10/7/2006 |
| Field goals, game (individual) |
Marco Peery, 5 — program record |
Justin Castellat, 4, vs. Virginia State, 9/1/2007 |
| Field goals, game (team) |
5 — program record |
4, set four times (last at Morgan State, 11/12/2011) |
| Longest field goal |
Peery, 48 — ties for 9th all-time |
Ties Everett Goldberg, 48, at Old Dominion, 11/26/2011. Program record is 51 |
| Team sacks, game |
6 — ties for 10th all-time |
Eighth occurrence; last vs. Morgan State, 10/28/2023 |
Also of note:
- Wonodi's 76-yarder was the program's first punt returned for a touchdown since Nov. 3, 2018, at North Carolina A&T. He had two before the day was out.
- Chad Smith's 2000 game against Delaware State held the individual yards, team yards and team average records at once. Wonodi broke all three in one afternoon, on one fewer return.
- Peery's 48-yarder broke his own career long of 40, set a week earlier at Virginia, where it was Norfolk State's only score.
WHAT THE WIN MEANS
- Gives head coach Michael Vick his third career coaching win
- Is Norfolk State's second win of the 2026 season
- Is the first win over a Division I opponent in Vick's coaching career
- Is Vick's first win in the Battle of the Bay, snapping Hampton's two-game winning streak in the series
- Is Norfolk State's first win over Hampton since a 31-23 decision at Armstrong Stadium in 2023
- Is Norfolk State's first win over Hampton at William "Dick" Price Stadium since a 24-14 victory on Sept. 26, 2015
- Pushes Norfolk State's lead in the all-time series to 31-29-1
- Evens Norfolk State's record at 2-2, its best start through four games since 2023
- The 42 points are the most Norfolk State has scored against Hampton since a 47-44 overtime win on Oct. 2, 2021
Also on the day (records are listed in the section above):
- Norfolk State did not commit a turnover and finished plus-2 in turnover margin
- The Spartans held the ball for 34:50, more than 13 minutes longer than Hampton, and punted twice to Hampton's seven
- Hampton quarterback Tre'Von Taylor finished with two net rushing yards on 15 attempts
Up Next
The Spartans hit the road for another two-game swing, first facing first-year program Chicago State at SeatGeek Stadium in Chicago, Ill., Saturday, Sept. 26 at 7:00 p.m. ET, before traveling to Pittsburgh to face Robert Morris on Oct. 3.
