The University of Alabama at Birmingham Athletics
UAB
East Carolina
UAB Falls in Close Game to ECU, 54-42
11/11/2010 12:00:00 AM | Football
Nov. 11, 2010
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BIRMINGHAM, Ala. ---- East Carolina rallied with three touchdowns in the final 8:18 of the game to overtake UAB in an offensive shootout Thursday night, 54-42, at Legion Field.
The Pirates' victory came despite of one of the top passing performances in Blazers' history by junior quarterback Bryan Ellis.
Ellis threw for 418 yards and five touchdowns in the game. The yardage total is the fifth-highest in UAB history and the touchdown count was just one short of the Blazer record.
Dominique Davis passed for 331 yards and tossed five touchdowns for ECU (6-4, 5-1 Conference USA).
The two teams accounted for 1,041 yards of total offense. UAB had 545 yards of offense while the Pirates totaled 492.
The Pirates trailed 42-34 with less than nine minutes to play, but a 56-yard punt return by Dwayne Harris and a fumbled kickoff by UAB (3-7, 2-4 C-USA) helped ECU close the gap quickly.
Davis' 11-yard pass to Jon Williams with 5:48 to play gave East Carolina the lead that it wouldn't relinquish the rest of the way.
"They (ECU) obviously did what they had to do to win," said UAB head coach Neil Callaway. "We made some mistakes there at the end with the fumble. No single play loses the game, but at the same time, that didn't help us by any means.
"We had a hard time slowing them down. I knew it would be a struggle and that they're explosive offensively. We are a banged up defensive football team. I thought our guys played hard, I thought they competed and we are just very disappointed that we didn't win this football game.
Williams had five catches for 115 yards and 14 carries for 82 yards and another score for East Carolina.
UAB had several offense stars in the game, in addition to Ellis' stellar effort. Running back Pat Shed set a UAB single-game record, as well as season mark, for all-purpose yards. He finished the game with 309 total yards and now has 1,735 for the season.
Senior tight end Jeffery Anderson caught a career-high seven passes for 82 yards and a pair of touchdowns. Wide receiver Mike Jones tied his career-high for receptions with eight and set a new personal-best mark for receiving yards with 110.
UAB will play its final regular season game next Saturday, Nov. 20 when the Blazers play host to Memphis at Legion Field in the annual "Battle for the Bones". Kickoff is set for 3:00 p.m.
