Braves score early, often to beat West Virginia State

Oct. 14—PEMBROKE — The University of North Carolina at Pembroke head football coach Shane Richardson wanted his offense to play better earlier in the game as the Braves hosted West Virginia State Thursday.

You could say they did.

The Braves scored touchdowns on three of their first five offensive possessions, adding a special-teams score in the span, to build an early lead in a 45-24 win at Grace P. Johnson Stadium.

"We did take it down (to start the game) and score the touchdown, and that just kind of starts to show our guys what we're capable of doing, and you gain confidence with that and can build on that," UNCP coach Shane Richardson said. "It felt good that we're scoring more points."

UNCP (4-3, 4-2 Mountain East Conference) had 451 yards of total offense, striking a balance with 217 rushing yards and 234 passing yards. Braves quarterback Josh Jones was 16-for-21 passing for 234 yards, with one touchdown and one interception, and rushed for 90 yards and two touchdowns. Zechariah Adams-Duckson rushed for 73 yards and JaQuan Kelly for 54; both scored a touchdown.

"When you can run the football, you can really do a lot of things well and it really opens up some other things for your team," Richardson said. "It's a morale booster; it's something that guys look at and they know the physicality that it creates, and you really create the psycological edge by doing that."

The Braves' offensive line has been a developing group all year, and played arguably its best game of the season, allowing just one sack and laying the groundwork for the Braves to move the ball both on the ground and through the air.

"Coach (Jeff) Fantuzzi does a great job with those guys and those guys have improved every week," Jones said. "They come in ready to go, work hard every day, and to see them succeed and continue to succeed and get better is awesome to see."

The Braves' opening-drive touchdown came after they moved the ball efficiently for every play of a six-play, 65-yard drive, ending in a 6-yard touchdown run by Jones for a 7-0 lead.

West Virginia State (4-3, 3-3 MEC) went three-and-out on its first two drives, and on the punt attempt at the end of the Yellow Jackets' second drive, the punter dropped the football and UNCP's Braylon Fowler recovered, then ran 10 yards for a Braves touchdown to take a 14-0 lead with 5:49 to go in the opening stanza.

"I don't think we had been playing very good special teams in the past two weeks; we challenged our team about that," Richardson said. "We talk about how we need to make a difference; special forces we really need to make a difference."

WVSU got on the board with a 1-yard Joe Jones run with 1:18 left in the quarter; UNCP answered on the next drive, with Josh Jones running it in from 11 yards out to take a 21-7 lead with 13:27 remaining in the half. The score was Josh Jones' 76th career touchdown accounted for, passing former quarterback Luke Charles' school record.

"It's awesome, but I think a lot of guys have played a part in it; the guys on the team now, and the guys on the team my first couple of years," Jones said. "Huge props to the coaches and those players, those guys really made that happen. It's an awesome thing to accomplish, but I also know there's things to clean up and more to accomplish moving forward."

"It's really a compliment to him, and even his teammates; with the players around him, they believe in Josh," Richardson said. "He has great credibility amongst his team, and they know what an important piece to our team he is. ... Being able to accomplish those things individually while also winning games, that's a big deal."

On the third play of the Braves' next possession, Josh Jones was intercepted by Avery Scott, who returned the pick 20 yards for a touchdown for a 21-14 score. The Braves answered, scoring on a 2-yard JaQuan Kelly run to go up 28-14 with 6:22 left in the half.

After the Yellow Jackets scored when Donovan Riddick found a wide-open Liam Reid for a 7-yard touchdown pass, making it 28-21, the Braves drove downfield in the half's final moments and Alex Alvarado kicked a 32-yard field goal with six seconds remaining, taking a 31-21 lead into the locker room.

Both sides scored after long drives on their first second-half possessions; WVSU got a 45-yard field goal from Brennen Schmidt, then Josh Jones found Trey Dixon for a 51-yard touchdown pass to give the Braves a 38-24 advantage. That remained the score at the end of the third quarter when another long drive by the Yellow Jackets ended in a bad snap and a botched field goal attempt.

UNCP missed out on an opportunity to extend its lead with Josh Jones fumbled inside the Yellow Jackets' 5-yard line early in the fourth quarter and the Yellow Jackets recovered; the Yellow Jackets' next two drives both resulted in turnovers on downs, with the first near midfield and the second at WVSU's own 23-yard line with 4:25 to go.

The Braves defense has allowed just three total second-half points in its last three games. Marcus Davis had 12 tackles, Dante Bowlding had 10 and Branden Spencer had three tackles for loss with two sacks.

"The biggest thing that we had problems with last year was the middle eight, which is the last four minutes of the first half and the first four minutes of the second half," Davis said. "I think we've just really bit down on that concept and understood when we come out at halftime we've got to have it rolling, keep it going and coming out and keeping our foot on their neck."

"We talk about Code Black, and it stands for three things — play fast, play hard, play together," Richardson said. "We're trying to make sure that everybody's responsible for their one-11th. ... When you can hold the offense to not scoring points, that's obviously a reflection of them buying into what we're trying to get done."

The Braves put the game away with a 5-yard scoring run by Zechariah Adams-Duckson with 2:05 to go for a 45-24 lead.

UNCP won Thursday's high-scoring affair after wins of 10-9 and 17-16 in its previous two games, leaving the Braves with a winning record for the first time this season. At 4-2 in conference play, they're squarely in the thick of the championship race in the crowded MEC standings; the Braves play next week at Charleston before returning to Pembroke Oct. 29 for homecoming against West Liberty.

"Every week I'm coming in to practice, and I'm telling them 'playoff mentality', so we're taking it one game at a time and living with that playoff mentality, anytime it's win or go home, and that's just how we're treating it for the rest of the season," Davis said. "I think that's a good mindset for us to have as a team, and we're doing great things on offense and defense."

Chris Stiles can be reached at 910-816-1977 or by email at cstiles@robesonian.com. You can follow him on Twitter at @StilesOnSports.