Navy sloshes past Wake Forest 13-10

Navy figured to have a tough time against Wake Forest without starting quarterback Ricky Dobbs and starting slotback Marcus Curry, the team's top two rushers.

It turns out that backup quarterback Kriss Proctor and fullback Vince Murray were more than enough.

Murray established a career-high with 175 yards rushing and Proctor performed well in his first career start as Navy edged Wake Forest 13-10 in front of 31,907 rain-soaked fans at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium.

Proctor added 89 yards rushing and did a solid job of directing Navy's triple-option offense, which piled up 338 yards rushing. The Midshipmen did not attempt a pass due largely to torrential rains that began midway through the second quarter and never let up.

Murray and Proctor got a lot of help from the Navy defense, which held Wake Forest 15 points below its season average. The Midshipmen did a good job of containing quarterback Riley Skinner, the school's all-time passing leader, who completed just 13 of 25 throws for 173 yards.

"Once again, I'm speechless with our kids. Week in and week out they give great effort. They went out there and battled and battled," Navy head coach Ken Niumatalolo said. "That's a great football team we played. I thought this was a great team win. I was pleased with all three phases - offense, defense and special teams."

Kicker Joe Buckley booted a career-long 50-yard field goal and later added a 41-yarder to complete the scoring for Navy (6-2), which has won five straight. Inside linebackers Tony Haberer and Ross Pospisil notched eight tackles each to anchor the superb defensive effort.

"It's a great feeling to get that sixth win. We're going to try to get the seventh and a bowl game next week," said Proctor, noting that Navy can clinch its seventh straight postseason appearance by beating Temple (5-2), which won its fifth straight last night, beating Toledo, 40-24.

Buckley's two field goals gave Navy a 6-3 halftime lead and Proctor extended it early in the third quarter. The 6-foot-1, 190-pound sophomore burst through a big hole on the right side then showed tremendous speed in outracing several defenders to the end zone for a 40-yard touchdown run that made it 13-3 just 3 ½ minutes into the period.

Strong winds and driving rains made it tough for both teams to do much offensively and the Midshipmen maintained the 10-point advantage until midway through the fourth quarter. However, Skinner has engineered seven fourth-quarter comeback wins during his career and looked like he might do so again after directing a 76-yard, nine-play touchdown drive that took just over two minutes.

Skinner threw a strike down the middle to a wide-open Devon Brown for a 15-yard touchdown pass that cut the Demon Deacons' deficit to 13-10 with 7:41 remaining. Navy was forced to punt on the ensuing possession, giving Wake an opportunity to drive for the tying field goal or winning touchdown.

Wake Forest (4-4) picked up one first down, but a 10-yard holding penalty on second down of the next series was a real setback and Skinner then threw two straight incompletions to force the visitors to punt.

"Our mentality as a defense is to put the game on our shoulders. That's what we asked for," Pospisil said in reference to the strong stand on Wake's final possession.

Wake's defense committed another costly penalty on the next possession, jumping offsides on third-and-four with 2:27 left to give Navy a crucial first down. Murray then ripped off a 42-yard run to seal the victory.

"When we cut it to three points I thought we were in good shape. Our defense was playing a little bit better, our offense was pumped up, but we just weren't able to make anything out of it," Wake Forest head coach Jim Grobe said. "I thought our kids played really, really hard. We just got beat by a really good football team."

Proctor started in place of the injured Dobbs (knee) and played well, doing an admirable job of directing the triple-option offense and running hard. The youngster dropped back to pass a couple times, but tucked the ball under and ran when the intended receiver was not open.

"It's nice to get a win under my belt. It was a little ugly. We shot ourselves in the foot a few times, but I guess that made it exciting," Proctor said.

Proctor did make one costly mistake, fumbling at the 3-yard line on second to snuff out a promising drive that appeared poise to produce a touchdown that would have put Navy ahead 20-3 late in the third quarter.

"Other than the one fumble, I thought Kriss Proctor played really well. For his first start to be a win against one of the better teams in the ACC was huge," Niumatalolo said.

NAVY 13, WAKE FOREST 10

Wake Forest 0 3 0 7 - 10

Navy 3 3 7 0 - 13

First Quarter

Navy-FG Buckley 50, 2:52.

Second Quarter

Wake-FG Newman 40, 13:45.

Navy-FG Buckley 41, 7:26.

Third Quarter

Navy-Proctor 40 run (Buckley kick), 11:23.

Fourth Quarter

Wake-Brown 15 pass from Skinner (Newman kick), 7:41.

A-31,907.

Wake Navy

First downs 18 16

Rushes-yards 35-135 64-338

Passing 173 0

Comp-Att-Int 13-25-0 0-0-0

Return Yards 13 13

Punts-Avg. 6-33.8 4-48.5

Fumbles-Lost 1-0 1-1

Penalties-Yards 7-57 4-39

Time of Possession 25:59 34:01

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

RUSHING-Wake Forest, Adams 18-89, Pendergrass 5-27, Skinner 8-17, Rinfrette 3-2, Ma.Williams 1-0. Navy, Murray 27-175, Proctor 23-89, Teich 2-35, Greene 4-20, Doyle 3-12, Finnerty 1-9, Byrd 1-2, Team 3-(minus 4).

PASSING-Wake Forest, Skinner 13-25-0-173. Navy.

RECEIVING-Wake Forest, Brown 3-47, Ford 2-29, Ma.Williams 2-29, J.Williams 2-23, Adams 2-17, Bohanon 1-19, Pendergrass 1-9. Navy.