April 8, 2006

Final Stats

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GREENVILLE, N.C. - Sophomore running back Dominique Lindsay rushed for 100 yards and a touchdown while senior kicker Robert Lee added three field goals to highlight East Carolina's annual spring game Saturday afternoon at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium.

In addition, senior quarterback James Pinkney completed 13-of-23 passes for 154 yards and hooked up with sophomore newly-converted tight end Davon Drew on a nine-yard touchdown pass to open the scoring and spark East Carolina to a 23-15 win over the Pirates.

In order to promote competition between the top and equal units of the depth chart, head coach Skip Holtz created East Carolina and Pirates squads in lieu of the traditional Purple-Gold lineups prior to the game. The East Carolina unit featured the program's first offensive unit and the remaining non-starters on defense while the Pirates fielded the top defensive unit and the second, third and fourth levels of the offensive two-deep.

Both teams played to a statistical draw as ECU picked up 261 yards and a pair of TDs while the Pirates finished the contest with 260 yards and two scores, but the former used 33, 22 and 35-yard field goals by Lee to secure the victory.

Lindsay aided Pinkney's effort by picking up 100 yards on 19 carries, an average of 5.3 yards per attempt. His two-yard scoring run with 7:29 to play in the fourth quarter extended East Carolina's existing five-point lead to 20-8. Redshirt freshman Rob Kass added an 18-yard passing performance by completing four-of-nine throws.

Pirates' redshirt freshman quarterback Brett Clay was seven-of-19 through the air and finished with 81 yards, but was picked off twice by sophomore cornerback J.J. Milbrook. Sophomore Patrick Pinkney added 10-of-17 passing for 72 yards while senior running back Brandon Fractious gained 73 yards on the ground and scored a pair of fourth-quarter TDs on four and one-yard runs.

"I think we're a long way away from where we need to be to be able to compete next year," Holtz said. "I think it's hard when you don't have all the pieces to the puzzle to be able to put it together yet but I was disappointed in a lot of things today. We had over 100 scrimmage reps a week ago and didn't have a bad snap and we come out here today and we throw the ball over the quarterback's head three times and probably lost 80 yards. I didn't think our quarterbacks played very well. I didn't think they were focused on their reads very well. I think across the board, youth and inexperience showed up today."

In all, both teams combined for four turnovers, two of which led directly to touchdowns. James Pinkney's TD toss to Drew capped a 16-play, 96-yard drive after Milbrook stepped in front of a Clay pass at the ECU four-yard line with 4:21 to play in the first quarter. Senior safety Kyle Chase picked off a James Pinkney pass at the Pirate 40-yard line early in the fourth quarter which set up Fractious' four-yard TD run which closed trimmed the deficit to 13-8 at the 11:37 mark. In addition, both teams were whistled a combined 13 times for 114 yards.

Trailing 13-0, the Pirates tallied their first points of the afternoon on a safety when junior tackle Mark Robinson sacked James Pinkney in the endzone on a third-and-19 play at the ECU nine-yard line. After Fractious added his first score of the day to narrow the margin to five at 13-8, Lindsey ended a 10-play, 75-yard march with a two-yard scoring run to push the lead to 20-8. Fractious contributed a one-yard scoring plunge with just 5:00 left to pull the Pirates to within five again but Lee closed out the scoring and secure the victory with his longest field goal of the day, a 35-yarder, with 1:11 remaining.

Both teams combined for 521 yards on 139 plays, an average of 3.7 yards per snap.

Drew posted a team-best four catches (26 yards) for East Carolina while senior Will Bland logged four catches for 33 yards to lead the Pirates.

Defensively, the Pirates' junior linebacker Durwin Lamb topped all tacklers with 11 stops while senior safety Jamar Flournoy turned in nine. Junior transfer linebacker Orlando Farrow finished with a team-high nine tackles, two for lost yardage, to lead East Carolina. Sophomore defensive end Zach Slate chipped in with six stops and recorded the game's only fumble recovery.

"I was disappointed watching it from a fan's standpoint above, but I'm sure I'll find a lot of great individual efforts and positives out there when I watch the film," Holtz added. "Just looking at the big picture, I was hopeful that we were farther along than we are right now but maybe I put too many high hopes on players that haven't played yet for us and that's my fault. Again, we've got a long way to go and we're going to have to learn from this if we are going to play the schedule we have in the fall."