Navy Outlasts ECU 27-23
Nelson Smith ran for 157 yards and a pair of touchdowns to lead Navy to a 27-23 win over ECU Saturday afternoon in Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium.
With the win, Navy improved to 3-0 in AAC play and 3-2 overall while ECU drops to 1-3 and 1-2 in league play.
Quarterback Holton Ahlers and Darius Pinnix among five players out on Saturday for ECU with just one positive test and four others out due to Covid19 contact tracing so Mason Garcia got his first start at quarterback for the Pirates.
Garcia threw for 104 yards on 10 of 20 through the air, but it was running back Rahjai Harris who rushed for 172 yards on 22 carries that really kept the Pirates in a position to win late in the game had a few more things gone their way.
Harris put together another solid game but in the end, it’s the win that he wanted most.
“Of course it builds my confidence, but I’d rather have a win for the team because I know how hard we worked, so we just deserved a win,” Harris told PirateIllustrated.com.
Less than a minute into the fourth quarter, Harris’ 80-yard touchdown run down the left sideline cut the Navy lead to seven at 20-27. It was the longest ECU run from scrimmage since quarterback James Summers’ 81 yard run in early November of 2016
.“Our offensive line played their tails off. I seen daylight and the rest is history,” said Harris.An emotional Mike Houston sees great progress from his group that has yet to translate to wins, but he is high the future of his Pirates and the effort they generated on Saturday.
“I really just like my team. I love those kids. They’ve changed the program and you guys can’t see what I see every single day but I’m telling you that bunch fights. I’m proud of them,” said Houston."Just the effort they gave today and the adversity they had all week this week, the way they compete and care about each other and the way they trust us as coaches. It’s been so hard to get to this point, but this team is going to get better every single week. We’ve got a lot of season left. My hat is off to Navy and they did what they had to do to win the game.
"While ECU led in total offense with 377 to 318, Navy made the most of their possessions, burned considerable clock and left ECU with just 22 seconds to try to score with 85 yards of territory to cover to try to win the game at the end. That proved to be too much for the Pirates.
“We’ve been working on this a good bit all throughout the summer and fall. You can have as good a plan as you want to but if they don’t go and fight like they did then the plan ain’t worth anything. That’s the real key to the whole thing, the performance of the players,” Houston told PI after the game,
"They fought their guts off. Navy is good at what they do. That staff has been together forever. They made some great adjustments. They did some things we hadn’t see. We had to make some adjustments. It was just a great battle out there. The way they fight. Their toughness, their physicality. It’s what we’re establishing as the way we’re going to play every Saturday."
In the end, Navy controlled three more minutes of clock than the Pirates and that proved to be the difference down the stretch. A pivotal fourth down run by Nelson Smith for Navy extended the drive with three minutes remaining and even though ECU finally got the football back, it was on the negative fifteen yard line with just 22 seconds to play and Navy was ultimately able to hold on the victory.
“Well that’s it. You’ve got to get the stop. When they got the ball back with 6:33 to go, you knew you had to get a stop somewhere in there. We had to get it to a fourth down. If you get it there and you get a stop you have a shot to win the game,” Houston said, "Obviously a huge play in the ballgame. I thought we had the right call defensively and inches is what it came down to."
“That one hurt. That’s all I’ve got to say about that. I thought he was a little short but I don’t get to spot the ball,” said Xavier Smith who led the Pirates with 15 tackles and three solo stops for an ECU team that is slowly getting better defensively every week.
Converted linebacker turned defensive lineman Rick D’Abreu was solid up front adding 13 tackles to nine more from Appalachian State transfer defensive end Chris Willis and eight tackles from Pirate safety Shawn Dorseau.
“Coach Harrell has been doing a great job coaching us and getting us ready for each and every single game,” Smith told PirateIllustrated.com, "There’s keys and little things to pick up and be aware of what’s coming. We’re coming into these games prepared and knowing what we need to do.”
Nelson Smith’s twenty yard touchdown run capped a fifty yard drive in six plays to get Navy on the scoreboard first for an early 7-0 lead. ECU then got on the scoreboard on a 40-yard field goal from Jake Verity that cut the Navy lead to 7-3 with just under five minutes to play in the first quarter.
An Elijah Morris fumble recovery at the Navy 25-yard line for ECU led to Verity’s second field goal of the day when the Pirates were unable to punch it in from the eight-yard line. The 25-yard field goal with 2:23 in the first quarter cut the Midshipmen’s lead to one point at 7-6.
Then freshman quarterback Mason Garcia scored his first career touchdown on a one-yard run with seven minutes to go in the half that gave the Pirates a brief 13-7 lead.
Navy scored again when Dalen Morris’ nine-yard run tied the game at 13-13 after Biajan Nichols’ extra point attempt was no good before the Navy lead grew to 20-13 on a 29-yard Nelson Smith touchdown run and on the last play of the third quarter.
Jamale Carothers ran it in from three yards out to cap off a 12 play, 53 yard drive for a 27-13 lead.
Then Jake Verity’s 39-yard field goal got ECU back to within four at 27-23 with just 6:33 remaining with the Pirates hoping to get a stop on Navy’s final offensive possession with time enough to score the winning touchdown.
East Carolina is off next week before traveling to Tulsa on October 30. Stay tuned to PirateIllustrated.com for the very latest from Greenville.
