10.7.06

ATHENS — Having football luminaries from the past — and June O. Shott — in attendance on homecoming day did not help Concord retain the magic in its "magic carpet."

The University of Charleston took away the Concord running game and scored three second-half touchdowns to pull away in a 28-18 victory on a cold and drizzly Saturday.

Concord netted 28 yards on the ground and 193 in the air — with 43 coming in on a fourth-quarter touchdown pass. Charleston ran up 434 yards of offense.

The Mountain Lions got the first big break on a punt play against the league-leaders in punt returns. UC’s David Pickett caught a Concord punt but the ball was knocked loose on a bone-rattling hit by Jason Smith. Concord recovered on its 10 and got a short field goal from Zach Boyd out of the opportunity.

Corey Isner got the first of his three TD passes on the next possession, a 17-yarder to Murvin Johnson.

Late in the second quarter, Concord ended a 65-yard drive with a touchdown toss from Rusty Coeburn to Kareem Royal on the back line of the end zone. The officials delayed a couple of seconds before signaling that the catch was in-bounds.

It was the first touchdown for the Mountain Lions in more than four quarters of action.

Isner scrambled out of the pocket for a 7-yard score in the third quarter, and victimized the Concord secondary in a three-minute span of the final period with a 15-yard touchdown toss to Johnson and a 50-yarder to Terrance Spencer.

Down by 28-10, Coeburn led Concord downfield and found Dustin Greenwood sailing downfield for a 43-yard touchdown. The pair connected on a two-point conversion pass and the deficit shrank.

"We cut it to 10," Quick said. "We’ve got the whole fourth quarter to work with. I felt good at that point. Then they countered. If they hadn’t countered at that point and we were able to counter back, it might have been a different game."

The Golden Eagles then handed the ball repeatedly to senior Blake Burr, burning more than five minutes off the clock. Coeburn threw six incomplete passes on Concord’s final series of eight plays.

Isner said, "Blake’s been clutch for us the last two years. ... He knew what we needed to have done, and he got it done."

Concord coach Greg Quick said, "The big play hurt us today. If we could deny the big play, then it’s a close ballgame. And we couldn’t do that.

"We didn’t execute well defensively in some critical situations. And offensively, we didn’t execute well in some of the third-down situations when we needed to move the ball."

Charleston coach Tony DeMeo said that he respected Concord’s ability to limit his team’s big-play ability. "We couldn’t count on a ‘bust.’ We just had to play, play, play."

After his team held Concord’s Tank Tunstalle to 2 net yards rushing and Coeburn to 13, DeMeo said, "Those are two very, very good football players, and we knew we had to stop the run first."

Reminded of the second-half passing game, DeMeo said, "I’d like to say I made great calls, but that was really Corey Isner, picking it out. We just ran our base stuff, and he just found the open receiver. (He’s) a great field general."

Isner had a different opinion from his coach. "I definitely can’t take credit for that," he said. "Our offensive line did a great job of giving me time, all day. And the receivers made great plays, ran great routes."

Quick said that Charleston "played well up front; the guys came off the ball hard. ... I was glad the way our kids transitioned and we were able to do some things throwing the ball today. I felt like we had a chance.

"We just made too many mistakes today — against a good football team. I think we were probably evenly-matched teams in a lot of ways. It came down to the point where, in a couple of critical situations, we didn’t make the plays and they did."

In a pregame ceremony, Shott broke a bottle of champagne against the mountain lion statue near the stadium entrance to "dedicate" the artificial surface of June O. Shott Field at Callaghan Stadium. She was accompanied by Concord President Jerry Beasley and by Ted Rogers, who chairs the institution’s board of governors.