ECU Topples UNC For First Win, 41-19

Saturday, September 8

Greenville, N.C.

3:30 p.m.

East Carolina University

North Carolina

September 08, 2018 | Football

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GREENVILLE, N.C. – The Pirates' defense pitched a shutout in the second half, including a couple of pivotal fourth-and-1 stops, as ECU pulled away and toppled North Carolina 41-19 on Saturday on Bagwell Field inside Dowdy Ficklen Stadium.

It was the Pirates' third-consecutive win over the Tar Heels and seventh against an Atlantic Coast Conference opponent in their last nine outings. More importantly, ECU evened its record at 1-1 and got the taste of an opening loss out of their mouths in a very satisfying way.

"They came out and performed well today," said head coach Scottie Montgomery, whose team will play at ACC foe, Virginia Tech, next Saturday. "I was just proud that we played hard. I thought we outplayed them. We played harder than they did. When a football team outplays a team just by playing hard, that's critically important for a program. That's working the body, and that's exactly what we did."

True freshman Holton Ahlers got his first action as a Pirate and provided some critical plays, including a pair of scores. But the fourth-down stops, both early in the fourth quarter, also defined the victory.

After a 21-yard touchdown run by Ahlers put the Pirates up 35-19 with 14:23 remaining, the Tar Heels overcame a 9-yard loss on first down as quarterback Nathan Elliott connected with Jake Bargas on a 19-yard gain to set up third-and-1. ECU stopped Jordon Brown on that play, then again on fourth-and-1 from the UNC 34 as Brown was slowed by Davondre Robinson and then quickly dropped by Nate Harvey.

The Pirates took advantage as Jake Verity kicked the first of his two field goals, from 44 yards, to make it a 38-19 lead with 11:28 to go.

Then the scenario repeated itself. Corey Seargent came up big with a pass break-up on a third-and-1 by UNC from its own 34, and on fourth down Brown again was stopped short, for all intents and purposes ending the Tar Heels' comeback attempt with 10:43 to go.

"When we got in the fourth-and-one situations today, I knew what the call was going to be," Montgomery said. "I just wanted to see them go execute, and boy did they ever go execute on fourth-and-1.

"But probably more critical was some of those third-down plays before those fourth-down plays. There were some exceptional plays on those third-down plays. Once we got the momentum rolling defensively, it was really good."

Robinson led the defense with nine tackles, and Devon Sutton and Aaron Ramseur both had eight. Ramseur had two tackles for losses.

"That was huge," Ramseur said of the fourth-down stops. "You always want to get off the field. It's always a good feeling when you can get off the field and give the offense a better chance to score."

The Pirates got a 25-yard field goal by Verity to complete the scoring with 5:33 to go.

UNC managed just five first downs 78 yards of total offense after halftime. It had 395 for the game.

ECU had 510 yards of offense, including 220 rushing. Anthony Scott had 17 carries for 73 yards and one touchdown, Darius Pinnix had five runs for 65 yards and one score, and Hussein Howe had 15 carries for 52 yards.

"What can I say about our running game?" Montgomery said. "We ran the ball with precision at different times in the game. Right there at the end, if we would've made a couple of blocks we could've sprung one for a really long gain and gone over the 300-yard hurdle that we've never been close to before."

Pinnix scored his touchdown on a 48-yard run virtually untouched with 10:19 left in the third quarter.

"The offensive line opens gaps like that all the time," he said. "I saw it and just hit it."

Reid Herring was an efficient 19-for-32 for 290 yards, with a 22-yard touchdown pass to Trevon Brown. And he clearly didn't mind being spelled by Ahlers at key moments in the game.

"It kind of gave us a different dynamic," Herring said. "We had certain situations where they put Holton in the game and he went out there and scored two times and did his job. That worked very well for us. It kind of switched up the tempo, too, at times."

"We have a great quarterback room," Montgomery said when asked about the decision to give Ahlers playing time and how he told the quarterbacks. "It's transparent around here. We're trying to win in any way that we can win. They hugged each other then, and we went to work."

There was plenty of scoring in the first half, all touchdowns by ECU and mostly field goals by the Tar Heels, as the Pirates took a 21-19 lead.

UNC ended its opening drive with a 32-yard field goal by Freeman Jones, but ECU responded in short order with an 8-play, 84-yard drive capped by a 6-yard touchdown run by Scott. The possession also featured the first collegiate action for Ahlers, who gained nine yards on his first run and handed off to Pinnix for a 4-yard gain before Herring came back in.

The Tar Heels got another field goal by Jones, from 44 yards, three possessions later. Their drive was kept alive twice on third-down conversions, the first on third-and-14 and the second on third-and-6. Overall, however, ECU held them 5-of-16 on third downs to while going 11-for-19 on third-down conversions itself.

After a three-and-out by the Pirates, UNC took the lead at 13-6 as Brown scored its only first-half touchdown on a 12-yard run with 2:38 left in the first quarter.

ECU answered with a 16-play, 86-yard drive completed with a 1-yard touchdown run by Ahlers. The score was set up by a nice one-handed grab by Pinnix to the 1-yard line on third-and-8 from the UNC 11. Scott had gotten the possession started with a 26-yard run from the ECU 14.

Jones' 49-yard field goal gave UNC a 16-14 lead on the next possession. The biggest play on the drive, however, was a targeting penalty on UNC running back Antonio Williams, who to that point had rushed six times for 96 yards.

On a completion downfield to Anthony Ratliff-Williams, Williams delivered a helmet-to-helmet block on ECU's Colby Gore, who laid on the field for nearly 15 minutes before being carted off and transported to Vidant Medical Center for further evaluation.

"It's football, and these situations happen, but boy, you don't know the emotions that a coach goes through when a player is out there playing for you, and your staff, and his teammates and his family," Montgomery said. "To have him laying down there like that, and everybody's standing around, it kind of put things in perspective about football and how hard these guys work."

That seemed to energize the Pirates, who scored on their next possession as Herring connected with Brown in tight coverage in the left corner of the end zone.

"Every time they come in here it's war," said Brown, who finished with four catches for 90 yards. "It feels good getting this win against an ACC team. Tonight was Chapel Hill against Greenville, and we got the W."

ECU led 21-16 before the Tar Heels closed the first half with yet another field goal by Jones, this time from 42 yards as time expired.

By Joe Corley