WEST LIBERTY, W.Va. – The West Liberty University football team closed out spring practice on Saturday with the annual Black and Gold intrasquad scrimmage. The Black defense held off a late surge by the Gold offense to come away with a 23-21 win in an entertaining contest featuring numerous big plays throughout.
“This was probably one of the better spring games we’ve had since I’ve been here,” veteran head coach Roger Waialae said. “We competed on both sides of the ball and we competed the right way. I think as a coaching staff, we were able to see what we needed to see.”
Waialae rotated his three quarterbacks – returning starter Rudy Garcia, juco transfer Kekoa Turangen and redshirt freshman Alex Dunlevy – throughout the contest. Unofficially, the three signal-callers combined to complete 36-of-55 passes for 409 yards and 2 touchdowns with two interceptions.
Garcia opened the contest with an efficient 8-play, 65-yard touchdown march. The returning junior completed 5-of-6 passes for 44 yards on the drive – his only incompletion was a drop – and took care of the final 23 yards himself by breaking out of the pocket on 3rd-and-5 and outracing everyone to paydirt.
Turangen’s first drive ended in a 3-and-out while Dunlevy moved the offense across midfield before the WLU defense forced a fumble, recovered by Carson Moore, to put some defensive points on the board.
Garcia returned to the field near the end of the opening quarter to lead another march across midfield. A potential 65-yard touchdown pass was dropped but the WLU offense shrugged it off and eventually picked up a first down just outside the red zone at the 22 on a 15-yard completion from Garcia to Ben Turner.
The drive died following back-to-back sacks. Cameron Rice and Delano Marcellus combined to stop Garcia at the 29 and John Brown followed with a sack at the 35 to kill the possession.
The defense forced turnovers on the next two possessions – a Chris Wilson interception and a fumble recovery by Zach Vincenti – but Garcia had time to lead one more drive before the end of the half. With running back Anthony Barmer doing much of the heavy lifting, the Hilltoppers drove to the 22 before Tyler Waddell saw a 39-yard field goal try bounce off the left upright with just 37 seconds left before halftime.
Turangen electrified the crowd on the very next snap by avoiding the pass rush and running to daylight for a 31-yard gain to the 47. A couple of quick passes moved the ball to the 32 but back-to-back drops forced a 49-yard field goal attempt by Justin Kaplan that twisted wide right.
“I thought our short passing game was pretty crisp, for the most part,” Waialae said. “All three guys were getting the ball out on time and on target. We ran the two-minute drill and gave ourselves a chance to score. I did think we needed to do a better job finishing our drives. We left some points on the field with turnovers and drops so we have things we need to clean up.”
Dunlevy opened the second half with the longest possession of the game. Mixing the run and pass, the offense marched all the way from its own 14 to the opposing 7 before disaster struck. On 1st-and-goal from the 7, a pass lofted into the back of the end zone came down in the hands of ball-hawking defensive back Jahi Hairston to put a few more points on the board for the WLU defense.
Now trailing 21-7, Garcia came back on the field and got the offense moving again. A quick shot to WR Rashawn Harvey, who finished with 104 receiving yards on a game-high 9 catches, moved the sticks and RB Dylan Asbury followed with back-to-back first-down runs to put the ball across midfield.
A pair of 10-yard completions to WR Chris Charles sandwiched around a 10-yard toss to Christion Banks gave WLU a first down at the 14. Two snaps later, Garcia threaded the needle to a slanting Charles for a 14-yard touchdown, cutting the lead to 21-14 with the first offensive score since the game’s opening drive.
The next one didn’t take nearly as long.
With the ball spotted at the 25, Turangen came on for the next possession and dropped back to pass on the very first snap. Stepping up into the pocket, he saw Turner coming open across the deep middle and hit the speedy wideout in stride just across midfield. Turner got to the right sideline and simply outran the angles of the pursuing defenders to complete a 75-yard pass-and-run touchdown. Turner finished his busy day with 7 catches for 126 yards and the touchdown while also excelling as the holder on PATs and field goals.
“Turner was kind of a diamond in the rough for us last year,” Waialae said. “I remember him picking up a bad snap on a PAT and just running it in for a 2-point conversion. He just has a knack for making plays. Also today, I thought Harvey’s run-after-catch yardage was as good as we’ve had here for a while.”
With the score tied at 21-21, the defense forced a 3-and-out on the next possession to go up 23-21. The Hilltopper offense tried to answer on the last possession of the game but a 49-yard field goal try into a stiff breeze fell well short.
“I stopped the game a little early because we’d already seen what we wanted to see so I didn’t want to risk any late injuries,” Waialae said. “We did have a couple of minor ones today but nothing that will keep anybody out in the fall. All in all, this was a very good day to end a very good spring for us. We can come out of here with a lot of positives.”
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