Bowling Green scored 16 fourth quarter points to pick up its first win of 2010 Saturday. Photos by Nate Thompson.
With the score tied at 28 and starting quarterback Matt Schilz in the training room with a shoulder injury, things were not looking good for Bowling Green heading into the fourth quarter against Marshall Saturday night. However, the Falcons found a way to get their first victory of the season, scoring 16 points in the final quarter on the way to a 44-28 win before a crowd of 20,515 at Perry Stadium. BG is 1-2 on the season.
“All year our guys have played hard and we’ve gotten close in the fourth quarter against some good football teams. We didn’t finish and we didn’t make the critical plays in the fourth quarter that you need to do to win games against good teams. Tonight we made those plays,” BG head coach Dave Clawson said.
“I was really proud of our defense,” Clawson continued. “When it was 28-28 that’s when we had to step it up a little bit and show some character and backbone and our guys responded great.”
Bowling Green’s defense made two interceptions in the fourth quarter and allowed Marshall only 16 total yards on 12 plays. BG also forced and recovered a fumble on a Marshall kickoff return in the final quarter. All told Marshall turned the ball over five times in the game.
Schilz was injured when he was sacked by Marshall’s Delvin Johnson at BG’s 1-yard line. Schilz fumbled on the play with 1:06 remaining in the third quarter and Marshall’s Jeremiah Taylor recovered.
One play later Marshall scored on a 1-yard run and with the PAT kick tied the game at 28. At one point Bowling Green held a 28-7 lead in the game.
Aaron Pankratz came into the game to replace Schilz. On his first play from scrimmage, Pankratz connected with Willie Geter on a 47-yard screen pass. The successful screen would lead to a 27-yard field goal from Bryan Wright with 14:13 left in the game.
Pankratz shook off an interception in the end zone and connected with Tyrone Pronty on a 31-yard TD pass with 9:21 remaining. Pronty displayed his athleticism with his open field running after the catch. There was a bad snap on the PAT and BG was ahead 37-28.
“I got a lot of help from Tyrone Pronty. I threw him the ball and let him do his thing,” Pankratz said about his first career TD pass. “It was a great feeling.”
The Falcons quickly increased their lead to 44-28 when freshman Jerry ‘Boo Boo’ Gates returned an interception 29-yards for a TD with 8:37 remaining to play. Wright’s PAT would close out the scoring. Gates’ interception was one of four by the Falcons in the game, with two being returned for touchdowns.
“It was great scheming up by the coaches, a great game plan,” BG linebacker Dwayne Woods said about the four interceptions. “All we did was execute it. It put us in the right position and we made plays.”
“You can’t have turnovers and win football games and we had too many,” said Marshall head coach Doc Holliday.
Bowling Green was able to close things out running the final 4:58 off the clock with Geter carrying the load. Geter finished the game with 31 carries for 100 yards, including 10 carries for 45 yards in the final five minutes.
“For us to be able to get the ball back and run it (the clock) out is very, very encouraging,” Clawson said.
The Falcons were also very good at the beginning of the game, scoring the first three touchdowns of the contest. Schilz hit Kamar Jorden with a 5-yard scoring pass and Woods returned an interception 78-yards to put BG up 14-0 after the first quarter.
Schilz then ran 1 yard for a TD less than four minutes into the second quarter. Marshall countered with a 64-yard scoring run by Andre Booker.
Bowling Green looked like it would take a 28-7 lead into the locker room when Jordan Hopgood scored out of the Wildcat formation on a 2-yard run with 54.6 seconds left in the half.
However, Wright’s kickoff went out-of-bounds and Marshall got the ball at its own 40-yard line. Brian Anderson then engineered a 60-yard scoring drive capped by a 6-yard pass to Antavio Wilson with 0.9 seconds left in the half.
Marshall would complete its comeback with two third-quarter touchdowns, before Bowling Green put things away in the fourth quarter.
“Coming back on the field at the half, we knew the game wasn’t over and we would have to keep playing hard all the way to the end of the fourth quarter,” said Woods, who also had eight tackles in the game. “They tied the game and we knew what we had to do, we had to keep going.”
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