Hempstead, N.Y. - The fireworks at Shuart Stadium were spectacular as Saturday's football game was a good, old-fashioned shootout.

It ended a once-promising season for the University of Massachusetts which lost 52-38 loss to Hofstra.

The Minutemen's record book was rewritten, but not in the fashion that their first-year head coach, Kevin Morris, would care to have happen again.

Pride quarterback Cory Christopher completed 38-of-50 passes for a career-high 484 yards to lead the Hofstra attack up and down the field. The 500 passing yards totaled by the Pride shattered the high of 459 set by Buffalo in 1997 against the Minutemen.

UMass had not given up as much as 300 passing yards in a game this season, but Hofstra had 309 by halftime.

The Pride finished with 599 total yards, to 459 for UMass.

The Minutemen, who started the season by winning three of their first four games, dropped into a third-place tie with Hofstra and Northeastern in the Colonial Athletic Association North Division at 3-5.

The loss also left UMass at 5-6 overall, snapping its streak of winning seasons at seven and keeping the Minutemen winless on the road for the first time since 2001, the last time the team finished under .500 at 3-8.

Senior quarterback Scott Woodward earned the first start of his UMass career in his final game and made the most of it, throwing for 277 yards and completing 19-of-30 passes.

The Mahar Regional graduate from Wendell, who won an open competition in practice last week with incumbent starter Kyle Havens, made play after play, both with his arm and his legs. On the first play of the fourth quarter, he capped an eight-play, 92-yard drive by rumbling into the end zone from 13 yards out to bring the Minutemen within 38-31.

"I figured it was probably my last football game ever, so I just left it all out on the field, but we just came up a little short," Woodward said.

After Hofstra scored on the ensuing drive, Woodward went back to work, marching UMass down to the Pride 2-yard line, from where Tony Nelson scored for his third touchdown of the day.

In Nelson's final game, he ran for 103 yards on 16 carries. It was his third straight game with 100 or more yards, and the 12th in his career.

"The offensive line did a good job blocking and (Woodward) did a good job back there," Nelson said. "As seniors we wanted to go out with a win, but we fell short, unfortunately. We prepared the same way and we wanted to come out and play the best we could to get a W."

With five minutes, 41 seconds still remaining, the Minutemen needed a defensive stop to give the offense a chance to tie the game, but that never came.

The Hofstra ground game, which had been mostly ineffective and finished with just 99 yards, churned the clock down under two minutes and effectively finished off UMass when Miguel Maysonet busted through for a 10-yard touchdown with 1:41 left, capping the scoring.

The Pride's offense went without a huddle throughout the game, and the Minuteman defense was unable to send it to the sidelines. That was particularly the case in the second quarter when Hofstra outscored UMass 21-3 and outgained the Minutemen 236-23 from scrimmage. The pride led 28-10 at halftime.

Christopher picked apart the UMass secondary, hitting nine different receivers led by Aaron Weaver, whose 15 catches fell one shy of the Pride record.

"It was an ideal win," Christopher said. "You don't care about statistics, but it's good to see all the hard work we did pay off. It definitely did today."

On the first Minuteman possession of the second half, Woodward made his only major mistake, throwing an interception that set up Hofstra at the 50. Five plays after the only turnover by UMass in the game, Henry Greco increased the Pride's lead to 31-10 with a 36-yard field goal.

The Minutemen never quite caught up from there.

"We played well in a lot of phases (this season) that didn't show up on the scoreboard," Morris said. "There were a lot of times we shot ourselves in the foot."

NOTES - UMass senior Victor Cruz climbed into fourth place on the all-time receptions list with an 11-catch afternoon. He finished his career with 131, passing Jason Peebler (123) and Marcel Shipp (126).

Kicker Armando Cuko's second-quarter 40-yard field goal gave him 31 for his career, breaking a tie with Silvio Bonvini (1985-88) for the most all-time as a Minuteman.