Pirates pick up sixth straight win over ACC foe

Make it six in a row for East Carolina.

The Pirates beat N.C. State 33-30 in a back-and-forth game on Saturday afternoon at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium for their sixth straight win over an ACC team.

This was the first for new coach Scottie Montgomery. ECU (2-0) got a 5-yard touchdown run by running back Anthony Scott at 5:49 in the fourth quarter to take the lead for good.

N.C. State (1-1) got the ball down to ECU’s 24-yard-line on the last drive but ran out of time.

“This is an emotional win,” Montgomery said. “Big-time recruiting in town this week. We recruit, recruit, recruit from one side of the state to the other side of the state. We’re very happy about it.”

The Pirates ran for three touchdowns, and quarterback Philip Nelson threw for 291 yards but N.C. State ended up hurting itself with special teams mistakes.

The Wolfpack missed two field goals, was stopped on a fake field goal and went for a 2-point conversion in the first half on a pass by the kicker.

In a critical game for the bowl hopes for each team, it was ECU that emerged with the important win.

“I didn’t manage the clock as well as I could have,” N.C. State quarterback Ryan Finley said. “We were moving the ball, it was just missed opportunities.”

ECU, with road games at South Carolina and Virginia Tech next on the schedule, gets a shot of confidence in Montgomery’s first season.

N.C. State will have to play catch-up after only its second regular-season nonconference loss in coach Dave Doeren’s fourth season — both to ECU.

“We’ve got 10 games left, and we can decide what we want to do with them right now,” Doeren said. “We need to get back to work and go win one together.”

Finley, who went the whole way at quarterback, threw for 254 yards and ran for a touchdown. His favorite target was receiver Stephen Louis, who had three catches for 142 yards and a touchdown.

The Wolfpack got 103 rushing yards from Matt Dayes, but N.C. State’s defense couldn’t get off the field when it needed to.

The Pirates capped off a 14-play, 87-yard drive with a 5-yard touchdown run by Scott for the 33-30 advantage at 5:49 in the fourth quarter.

After a quick 12-0 start by ECU, the teams went back and forth in an emotional, sometimes sloppy game. N.C. State led 20-19 at the half but dropped an interception return that would have been a touchdown. Scott, who scored the game-winner, dropped an open pass that would have been a touchdown for ECU.

N.C. State got the ball back down three with 51 seconds. Finley completed a pass to Dayes for 2 yards and another to Cherry for 14. But after two unsuccessful tries to get Dayes, there were 8 seconds left.

Finley found Cherry, and he picked up 22 yards, but the clock ran out.

“As a whole team, we have to be better,” Finley said. “Missed opportunities all the way across the board.”

N.C. State went up 30-26 on a 15-yard option keep from Finley at 13:04 in the fourth quarter. The Wolfpack put together a 12-play, 90-yard drive to give its defense a rest.

But ECU, which got two long rushing touchdowns (27 and 15 yards) from James Summers, had the answer. Nelson, who was 16-of-17 passing in the second half, led a long, clock-eating drive.

Nelson completed 6 of 6 passes for 62 yards on what turned out to be the winning drive. The biggest play was a pass interference on cornerback Mike Stevens on third-and-9 from N.C. State’s 11.

It took Scott two plays after the penalty to find the end zone. In all, the drive ate up 7 minutes, 15 seconds.

N.C. State had two more chances to win but couldn’t avoid its third straight loss to the Pirates.

“Defensively when we had our back against the wall, we made some plays,” Montgomery said.

This story was originally published September 10, 2016 at 6:03 PM with the headline "Pirates pick up sixth straight win over ACC foe."