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Blocked-punt return lifts ECU to 27-22 win
Pirates topple 17th-ranked Hokies on strength of Lee's big play
AP Photo
Davon Drew of East Carolina catches a pass against Rashad Carmichael.
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Published: August 31, 2008
CHARLOTTE
East Carolina's players refer to blocked punts as "boom-booms."
There's the thud when the punter kicks the ball, and the thud when it is blocked.
Yesterday afternoon at Bank of America Stadium, the Pirates sounded one of the loudest and most dramatic "boom-booms" in school history.
T.J. Lee's blocked punt and 27-yard return for a touchdown with 1:52 remaining gave the Pirates a stunning 27-22 victory over 17th-ranked Virginia Tech.
Lee stormed through from the left side to block Brent Bowden's punt with the Hokies facing fourth and 13 from their 37. The ball bounced straight up into Lee's hands, and he raced untouched for the winning touchdown.
Linebacker Quentin Cotton, a former Glenn star, summed up the feelings of many as the play unfolded.
"I said, ‘Oh my God,'" Cotton said. "When I see one like that, you know, man, that's just praying to the football gods. The football gods were with us today."
The Pirates trailed 14-0 early and were still behind 22-13 late in the fourth quarter before their dramatic comeback. They cut the lead to 22-20 on quarterback Pat Pinkney's 3-yard run with 3:36 left, then held Virginia Tech on its next series … and then Lee stepped into the spotlight.
"What a great win," said Coach Skip Holtz. "I'm so proud of these players. I cannot say how proud I am of them. The way they competed, the way they hung in there. It would have been so easy at so many times to just give up. But they never gave up, they never quit, they kept believing. The leadership was awesome."
Virginia Tech was shellshocked afterward. The Hokies have been renowned for their special-teams play throughout Coach Frank Beamer's tenure, but yesterday they were beaten on a special-teams play.
"There's no excuse for that," Beamer said. "I give them credit. The guy did a nice job. But I bet no one's worked harder on punt protection than us in the preseason.… I'll have to watch the film, but I thought the snap was a little bit soft and I think the kick was a little bit slow."
Pinkney's 3-yard run capped a nine-play, 73-yard drive with 3:36 left to cut Virginia Tech's lead to 22-20.
Virginia Tech then picked up one first down before the Pirates' defense stiffened, and forced Virginia Tech to punt on fourth-and-13 from its 37-yard line.
Lee, a senior backup receiver in his first year on the punt-block unit, lined up on the left side, one player inside the edge. He snuck through a gap in Virginia Tech's zone protection, burst up the middle, and blocked Brent Bowden's punt with his left arm. The ball bounced up into his hands, and he raced untouched for the touchdown.
"We got a good push, I saw a little opening, I kind of slipped in, blocked it, and scooped and scored," Lee said. "I just happened to get in. It hit my arm, I was looking around to see if anybody else got it, but I got a good bounce and it came into my hands so I just took it."
He said that he was as shocked as anyone among a sellout crowd of 80,616.
"You know, I thought we could block it," Lee said. "But I thought somebody else was going to block it. But luckily, I was there and happened to get in."
East Carolina's defense then forced Sean Glennon into a short run and three straight incompletions on Virginia Tech's next series, and the offense was able to run out the clock from there.
It was a day for freak plays long before Lee's block and touchdown.
Virginia Tech scored its first touchdown when cornerback Stephan Virgil scooped up a backward pass by Pinkney that fell to the ground, and Vigil raced 30 yards for the touchdown. A replay confirmed that Pinkney's throw for Dwayne Harris was a backward pass, not an incompletion.
Early in the third quarter, East Carolina scored on a 12-yard pass from Pinkney to Jamar Bryant to cut Virginia Tech's lead to 14-13. But instead of tying the game with a conversion, the Pirates found themselves down 16-13 when John Graves blocked the point-after attempt and Virgil scooped the ball up and returned it 90 yards for a two-point conversion.
Holtz praised the ECU defense for keeping it in the game early. Cotton's interception stopped Virginia Tech's first drive after it had driven to the 20. Then the defense held on a fourth-and-1 from the 5-yard line on Tech's second possession. Then linebacker Nick Johnson's interception and return to the Virginia Tech 1-yard line set up ECU's first touchdown, a 1-yard run by Jonathan Williams.
Beamer bemoaned the missed opportunities.
"I don't think we're as good as we're going to be," Beamer said. "I think we can learn a lot from today's game and become a better football team ourselves. And that's what we're going to do. It hurts to lose with a blocked kick at the end. I think our kids played hard, tried hard, they were playing a good football team and we didn't do the things at the end to win a football game."
■ John Delong can be reached at jdelong@wsjournal.com.
Va. Tech 0 14 2 6 -- 22
ECU 0 7 6 14 -- 27
Second Quarter
VT--Virgil 30 fumble return (Keys kick), 12:19.
VT--Lewis 6 run (Keys kick), 8:54.
ECU--Williams 1 run (Ryan kick), 1:16.
Third Quarter
ECU--J.Bryant 12 pass from Pinkney (kick blocked), 10:05.
VT--2-point defensive conversion by Virgil, 10:05.
Fourth Quarter
VT--Evans 3 run (kick failed), 14:56.
ECU--Pinkney 3 run (Ryan kick), 3:36.
ECU--Lee 27 blocked punt return (Ryan kick), 1:52.
A--72,169.
TEAM STATISTICS
VT ECU
First downs 12 19
Rushes-yards 35-104 41-158
Passing 139 211
Comp-Att-Int 14-23-2 19-25-0
Return Yards 0 64
Punts-Avg. 3-31.0 3-43.3
Fumbles-Lost 2-0 4-2
Penalties-Yards 1-0 6-60
Time of Possession 26:52 33:08
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING--Virginia Tech, Lewis 11-62, Evans 12-37, Boone 3-4, Glennon 7-3, Jefferson 1-2, Oglesby 1-(minus 4). East Carolina, B.Simmons 17-54, Williams 10-48, Harris 3-32, Pinkney 11-24.
PASSING--Virginia Tech, Glennon 14-23-2-139. East Carolina, Pinkney 19-23-0-211, Kass 0-2-0-0.
RECEIVING--Virginia Tech, Smith 3-32, Whitaker 3-14, Coale 2-15, Lewis 2-(minus 6), Roberts 1-62, Boone 1-9, Boyce 1-7, Evans 1-6. East Carolina, Drew 5-65, Harris 4-68, J.Bryant 4-34, Lee 2-26, B.Simmons 2-11, Gidrey 1-5, Williams 1-2.
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