GREENVILLE, NC (WTKR)- For a good portion of the game, it looked like Old Dominion would put itself in a position to push past East Carolina. Once the Pirates hit the fourth quarter, however, they had other ideas.
ECU scored 14 points in 24 seconds early in the final frame to pull away and hand the Monarchs a 39-21 defeat on Saturday night at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium. ODU fell to 1-1 on the season.
The Pirates jumped out to a 9-0 lead, but Hayden Wolff and Ali Jennings hooked up on a deep ball and connected again on a touchdown two plays later to trim the deficit to 9-7. Another ECU score, however, would put the silver and blue in a 16-7 halftime hole.
Wolff and Jennings would get to work again in the third, connecting for another touchdown to pull the Monarchs to within two at 16-14.
With the Pirates leading 22-14 in the fourth, the home team put its foot on the gas. Keaton Mitchell burst through for an 81 yard touchdown rush and, after East Carolina recovered a fumble, Rahjai Harris scored from 15 yards out to put the game out of reach.
"I think we let a couple drives linger for us, a couple plays linger for us and instead of just washing it away and going to the next one, we let it sit there," Old Dominion head coach Ricky Rahne said.
"We had a chance the entire game," Jennings added. "There were just a few plays we didn't execute and that's where you could kind of see the score starting to pull apart. The score doesn't represent how we played. I feel like we played really well, we just... a few plays we left on the field that could have changed the outcome of the game."
Jennings was masterful on offense, pulling in eight receptions for 196 yards and three touchdowns. Wolff completed 18 of his 29 pass attempts for 271 yards and the three TD strikes to Jennings. He was also picked off once in the third quarter.
Old Dominion had a lot of trouble establishing the run, gaining just 15 rushing yards during Saturday's game. Blake Watson led the Monarchs with 45 yards on the ground.
"What they do on defense is they crowd the box and they try to make you throw it," Rahne noted. "We had some guys open down the field and we were able to hit those at times. We've got to hit more of those so we can get them out of their base defense a little bit more."
East Carolina out-gained ODU, 531-286 and picked up 30 first downs on the night, compared to the Monarchs' 12. The Pirates held the ball for more than 38 minutes.
Old Dominion is back in action next Saturday when the Monarchs travel to Charlottesville to face Virginia. Kickoff is set for 2:00 PM.
