MLN Newswire - (New Haven, CT) – The New England Knights, coming off a dominant 37-0 victory in their season opener over the Long Island Tribe, will play their first home game of the season on Saturday, July 29th at 5:00pm at Ken Strong Stadium at West Haven High School against the Long Island Seahawks.
 
The Knights are the defending back-to-back national champions and Coach Greg Volpe has high expectations for the team again this year.  “We will be looking to our veteran players for leadership as we have a lot of inexperienced players this year,” said Volpe.  “The new players are going to have to step up and produce right away for us to maintain our championship caliber of play.  Our defense has always been one of our strengths and we are excited about our backfield.”
 
Former Southern Connecticut State University star RB Rashaan Dumas, in his first year with the Knights, is part of that strong backfield along with Aaron Hairston, Cecil Snowden and Walter Davis.  Dumas is one of the NCAA’s All Time Career Scoring leaders and was the MVP of the Northeast-10 Conference.  His journey through football has taken him from NFL mini-camps, to the XFL, to Arena League and even over to NFL Europe.  Dumas is looking forward to returning to Connecticut to continue his football career. 
 
The Knights will also have a new starting QB for their home opener as Gary Stanley, former Sheehan High of Wallingford star and University of Delaware QB, will be under center this week.