Virginia Tech Upsets No. 6 West Va. 19-13

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Posted 4:19PM on Saturday, October 2, 2004

BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) -- Vincent Fuller intercepted Rasheed Marshall's pass with 18 seconds left and Virginia Tech beat West Virginia 19-13 Saturday, jeopardizing the Mountaineers' championship hopes. The No. 6 Mountaineers will play the rest of the season against currently unranked opponents and will need losses by all the other top-ranked teams to again become a championship contender. The Hokies' own championship run was dashed last year when Virginia Tech lost 28-7 at West Virginia. West Virginia had a chance to tie the score with 11:43 left in the fourth quarter, but the Mountaineers' offense sputtered. Marshall ran it three times on one drive and tried passing it three times on the following drive without getting a first down. On the final drive, Marshall pitched the ball to Charles Hales, who then passed 32 yards to Eddie Jackson. But Fuller ended the Mountaineers' drive with an interception on the following play. Brandon Pace hit field goals of 29, 30, 35 and a career-long 46 yards, making up for a game-losing miss last week in a 17-16 loss to N.C. State. Mike Imoh added 115 yards on the ground in his first career start, and stymied the Mountaineers in the final minutes with six carries for 20 yards to force WVU to exhaust its timeouts. Neither team put aside the heated rivalry now that Tech is in the Atlantic Coast Conference, racking up a combined 35 penalties for 255 yards that stifled drives and kept both teams out of scoring position. The Hokies and the Mountaineers are scheduled to meet only one more time, an October 2005 matchup in Morgantown. Tech's defense kept WVU's vaunted running game in check, holding Kay-Jay Harris and Jason Colson to a combined 69 yards. With its offense sputtering, the Mountaineers depended on their defense. WVU got its first score when Eric Wicks intercepted Randall and ran untouched 34 yards in the third quarter. Marshall missed the 2-point conversion, throwing over a crowd to keep it 16-6. But Tech came right back. Imoh returned the kick off 42 yards and Randall connected on a 15-yard pass to Josh Morgan to set up a 35-yard field goal. The Hokies scored first after Harris fumbled on fourth-and-inches at the Tech 45. Josh Hyman caught a 32-yard pass, setting up Brandon Pace's 30-yard field goal. Tech maintained the pressure in the second half. Randall ran 21 yards on a broken play in the opening drive of the third quarter to set up a 29-yard field goal. The closest the Mountaineers got in the first half was the Hokies 24. But at the end of that drive, Jim Davis broke through the line and blocked a 40-yard field goal attempt by Brad Cooper. Fuller scooped the ball and ran 74 yards to make it 13-0. Colson had a 16-yard run and Marshall broke through the pocket and ran 46 yards down the sideline to put the Mountaineers within 6 in the fourth quarter.